Love You Forever Essay Example

like you for always, as long as I’m living my baby you’ll be” (Munsch 1). We then assume that he will be singing the song to his own daughter for many years to come. Easily it can be seen that Love You Forever touches on many serious aspects of life.

It introduces the idea of familial ties and patience within a home. It exposes the idea of death loss in a family, as well as how much a mother loves her child. Love You Forever brings hope and security as the circular motions of life are found when the son begins his own family. This use of true-life situations and application of such to the reader causes a jolt of memory and, as a result, an outburst of emotion. Sheila McGraw, the artist and illustrator of Love You Forever, is given credit for her works that are done in bright colors, and depict family life relationships (McGraw 09).

These illustrations of a mother and her child, within their familial confines found in Love You Forever, have a significant impact on the story itself. McGraw tends to use a lot of shades of blue in this book. When looking up the color meaning of blue it was found that it is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven. Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body. It slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect. Blue is strongly associated with tranquility and calmness. All of which are things associated with this book.

White is another color used frequently in the story, looking

up the meaning of white it was found that it is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, safety, faith as well as virginity, all things that relate to a mother and child’s relationship with each other. It is considered to be the color of perfection. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation. White can represent a successful beginning. As a reader continues throughout the book, his or her eyes are exposed and drawn to beautiful illustrations of recognizable trademarks of childhood.

The pictures are in fact emotional, which can easily make little children understand what this book is actually about. Munsch was born on June 11, 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, grew up in a family of 9 kids. He never really learned how to spell. Graduated from eighth grade counting on his fingers to do simple addition, and in general was not your typical A student. However, all through elementary school, he wrote poetry. After graduation he studied for seven years to be a Jesuit priest, only to find that he was not good priest material.

While studying with the Jesuits, he got an undergraduate degree in History and a Master's degree in Anthropology. He worked part-time at an orphanage to escape from philosophy classes. He decided then he liked working with kids. He left the Jesuits then decided to work in a daycare for a year till he figured out what he wanted to do. After working in daycare for a while he decided to try and figure out what he was supposed to be doing with his life (Munsch 08). He decided to go back to school for

a year at the Elliot Pearson School of Child Studies at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.

It was there that he made up his first story while on a student teaching placement at the Wellesley College Child Studies Preschool. Munsch became Canada’s bestselling author, but was not selling much in the USA. Love You Forever came out as a Canadian book in 1986. He had written it as a memorial for two stillborn babies he had in 1979 and 1980. The story actually started out as a song. He wanted this story to be a book, his regular publisher did not want to do it, and so he changed publishers. He was really worried that it would not sell.

It sold thirty thousand copies in 1986, was the bestselling kid’s book in Canada that year, seventy thousand copies in 1987 and was the bestselling Canadian kid’s book that year as well. It sold one million copies in 1988 and was the bestselling Canadian kid’s book that year too. In 1994, the ‘New York Times’ did an update of their list of bestselling children’s books that they had last done in 1978. They did not update the list often since it was very stable. They found Love You Forever at the top of the list with eight million copies sold (Munsch 08).

Love You Forever is a great book that teaches children that no matter what, their moms are always going to love them. It is comforting for children to know that their moms love them and are going to be there for them in the good and bad times. This book proves

to children that there is nothing a child can do to make their parents stop loving them. Even if they behave like they belong in the zoo. A parent’s love for their child is definitely the strongest sort of love a person can feel. A child should know that no matter what they do, or how they act their parents will love them, and be there for them, forever.