When eight-year-old Gah-Ning Tang wrote her first letter to children’s author Robert Munsch, she had no idea it would spark a lifelong friendship—and inspire one of his most beloved books
When you drive into a community, you often see hometown heroes – like hockey players – being saluted on roadside signs.
There is also inspiration and sensitivity on the back roads, and this is a story of both – also worthy of knowing about. There’s no sign to tell you so.
Robert Munsch, the writer
The famed children’s book author, Robert Munsch, is ailing.
In October 2021, children’s author Robert Munsch told Shelagh Rogers on CBC’s The Next Chapter that he had ongoing dementia and that the diagnosis was affecting his ability to drive, ride a bike, and write. He considered the interview a last hurrah and reflected on his life and legacy.
“The stories will be the last thing to go,” he said then.
He lives on.
If you have not read or been read to, Munsch is now the 80-year-old Canadian-American author of nearly 100 children’s books.
And this brings us to northern Ontario.
Real children inspire the author’s stories he has met, with events from their lives being adapted and exaggerated for his books.
One is a sensitive story when an eight-year-old reaches out through letter correspondence. It includes a picture of a little girl in a hot-air balloon who longed to escape the everyday monotony of her family’s Chinese restaurant. It was the spark for the 1994 book Where is Gah-Ning?
Gah-Ning
Where is she now?
I reached out to the young girl, Gah-Ning, after listening to a CBC interview with her on Day 6. I wanted to know more, especially since the storyline involved Hearst and Kapuskasing.
It is a storyline where a forward-thinking eight-year-old girl plans to escape her small town of Hearst and set out for Kapuskasing, to the east on Highway 11.
Thirty-five years later. Gah-Ning Tang, now living in Toronto, wrote her first letter to children’s author Robert Munsch when she was in grade three.
That letter began a lifetime of correspondence that continues to this day. She reflects on her friendship with Munsch, his dementia diagnosis and the news that he has been approved for Medical Assistance in Dying.
There were questions in a series of correspondence and on the Back Roads Bill podcast with her to be aired this coming Wednesday, November 5. All of this became an in-depth interview for this story.
Questions
Do you recall your original motivations in writing to Robert? What captured your interest in his writing?
At the time, she was just looking for another adult to write to.
“My grandmother had passed that April, and I think we buried her in May. We had to wait for the ground to thaw before we could bury her. What was ironic about that was that it snowed when we buried her,” she said.
“I remember that day being very cold. At that age, she was the one adult that had time to listen to me and answer all my questions. My parents were busy in the kitchen of the restaurant.”
Her teacher helps.
“My grade three teacher had our classroom filled with Robert Munsch books, as well as Judy Blume, the Berenstein Bears and many others.
“She put a lot of effort into filling our classroom with books. We even had Munsch’s books on tape. Aside from the books, I recall her teaching the class about letter writing. As part of the letter-writing unit, she had our class write a letter to Bob on chart paper,” Tang said. “He was known to write back to children and classes. I think she had said, ‘Let’s make it big so we can catch his attention.’”
She sent the letter to his publishers. It worked. He sent a letter back to the class, but on the return address of his letter was his own address and not his publisher’s.
“My teacher had pointed that out to the class and asked if anyone would like to write to him on their own. Most of us had stood in line for the address. Whether we all wrote to him, I don’t know.”
She recalls a classmate wrote to him and received a signed copy of ‘something Good’ and a bookmark of the same book.
How did you feel about the book being published?
“I wrote and received the original story for Where is Gah-Ning? along with a short letter. At eight years old, I just wanted a signed book. I didn’t know what a manuscript was and that it would later lead to a book.”
So, she kept writing.
“I also really liked the waiting and the anticipating of what his response would be. I had fallen in love with letter writing as a form of communication,” Tang said. “To me, it was sharing stories with a friend. Where each person had their turn to speak (write) their story, with no interruptions. I loved finding a letter from him in our postal box.
“Eventually, I received signed books. Those were amazing to receive, too. I loved receiving his books. My parents couldn’t always afford to buy all the books I wanted, so these were very special.”
As she grew older, she learned that Bob would send form letters out with a signed book.
“I realized that I had never received a form letter from him. But it still didn’t hit me what was happening and this relationship we were building. Sadly, it only hit me in adulthood.”
Four years later (from the first letters), “Where is Gah-Ning? is published. “Thirty-five years later, we still keep in touch.”
Tell us about growing up in Hearst?
“It was such a small town that we didn’t have a movie theatre or a McDonald’s (it does now). When I was a kid, I would always be excited to go with my cousins to Kapuskasing, 100 km from Hearst, for a movie and Chicken McNuggets because I didn’t want to be in town at our family restaurant.”
Her Uncle King owned King’s Café (still on George Street, new owners), which was one of only two Chinese restaurants in Hearst.
She wrote about all of this in her first letter to Munsch in 1989. She drew the picture of herself in a hot-air balloon.
“I vaguely remember being pink and red. He wrote Where is Gah-Ning? based on that picture, but he changed the hot-air balloon to 300 balloons.”
In the book, her parents went searching for her after venturing to Kapuskasing.
“Part of the joke in the title was that as a child, I was always curled up and tucked away in a corner somewhere, and my mom was constantly looking for me.”
She wrote him letters nearly every two weeks as a child. Most of them were written on the back of the paper placemats that the restaurant used.
“They weren’t the new ones, either. They were the slightly used ones that came back from the tables, which my mom would tell me to use. They were blank on one side and had pink and red advertisements for local businesses printed on the other side. I wrote to Bob about my dreams of becoming an illustrator, and later a writer; he wrote back, encouraging me to pursue my dreams.”
When was your first meeting?
The first time she met the famed writer, she was ten years of age.
“I was 10 years old. I had been writing to him for two years. Bob was known for dropping in unannounced at schools when he travelled for shows, and that year, he decided to come and visit my school. I was called out to the staff room, where Robert Munsch was waiting. I was surprised but also very shy. The next thing I knew, I was spending the whole day with him. I was hanging out with him in the gym and the library in between his storytelling sessions in the school. I don’t remember what we talked about. I probably just rambled.”
As she entered adulthood, she would write to him about the stories she was working on.
“For more than 32 years of letter writing, we started calling each other family. I actually write the letters to Uncle Bob and Aunt Ann (Munsch’s wife).”
She has been writing to Bob more because of the dementia diagnosis.
“Ann let me know that it makes him feel better. Sometimes I forget he’s this larger-than-life storyteller. To me, he’s always been just Bob.”
Memories of Munsch’s visit
In the back of the book, Munsch speaks of his visit to Hearst. What do you recall about this?
“I do not recall being kicked out of the toy store, but Bob insists that it happened when he came to town.
“Now, it wasn’t really a toy store, Bob just remembers it that way, because we brought him into the store by the back entrance, which leads directly to the toy department,” she said.
“The store that we brought him into was the department store, Northern (which now is 2-4-1 Pizza Bowling Billards Bar and Grill), which was part of the Hudson’s Bay. Prior to that, I think it was the Hudson’s Bay.”
They walked around town.
“I recall walking from the store to the cemetery, but I think we took the residential streets to get there. I don’t think we walked on the highway, because my cousins and I were 9 and 10. I remember it being cold, and we warmed up quickly from our walk.”
The things you didn’t know.
“By the time we made it to the cemetery, I remember we were all looking at Bob, who was drying his nose. We couldn’t figure out if he had a runny nose, because he wasn’t really blowing it, or if his face was leaking… but it didn’t really look like a runny nose,” Tang said.
“I can’t remember if one of us asked him why his face was leaking or if it was just the looks on our faces. But I recall Bob saying, ‘Yes, my face is leaking. Half my face is fake. I had reconstructive surgery on half my face.’ He had to have half his face reconstructed because someone had hit him in the face with a bat when he was in Boston once.
“Then we proudly showed him what we did when we made it to Grandma’s grave. I honestly can’t remember whose idea it was to introduce him to Grandma or to go to the cemetery. But we did.”
She remembers there was only one moose as the town’s original tourism icon (now there is a new moose and a cluster of wolves).
“Growing up in Hearst, I only recall one moose, right outside our information centre as you come into town from the east, on the highway. It was called the information centre then. I guess it’s the visitor centre now. It stood where the newer wolves and moose currently stand. It was a much smaller statue.”
“I think we even brought Bob to the information centre and the moose. I do know that we did include a photo of them to Bob when they were working on the book, which is why they made it into the book. If you noticed it, the moose is there and so is the information centre.”
What about your childhood memories, and in the restaurant?
She has many. The chicken balls are important to Robert Munsch, if you read the story.
“There were two Chinese restaurants in Hearst when I was a child. Both were in the family in a way. One was owned by my Uncle King (mom’s brother – and the one I lived in). The other was owned by my Uncle Eddie (mom’s cousin).”
She speaks of random, good memories.
“There were family dinners between the two restaurants, and running around both dining rooms.”
“Running to my Uncle Eddie’s restaurant (now Dr. Gilles Lecours – who remains) through the back alleys, and landing in his back yard, surprising my Mom, who had wondered where we ran off to. Those alleys are now fenced off.”
“Going to the ice cream shop (now the Heritage Sawmill sits in that location) on Sunday evenings after the restaurant was closed. The ice cream shop was behind the restaurant, across the highway.”
“Sidewalk sales in the summer and the street dance that accompanied it.”
“Napping in the booths of the dining room during the holidays when we were closed.”
So many sights and sounds.
“The sound of snow removal in the winter.”
“Sitting in the dining room, late at night after the restaurant closed and looking up at the moon, as it shone on the newly fallen snow in the municipal parking lot,” she said. “This was usually during the Christmas holidays, and I was waiting for my uncle to come back to the restaurant to close up the till. Sometimes, my parents would let us stay up late to have dinner with them.”
“Playing jump rope and other games with the girls from the Greek restaurant next door.
“Working with my cousins in the restaurant, and with the catering we did.
“Having conversations with the delivery men. My favourite interaction was with the delivery guy who always dropped off our mung beans. He would bring in two to three sacks of mung beans over his shoulders. They were big sacks. One day, he had asked me what we did with all the mung beans. When I told him that we grew our own bean sprouts, he asked if he could see. With my mom’s permission, I showed him.
“As a teen, Mom taught me how to clean them and to check if they were going bad or not.”
And unique memories.
“Cooling off in the walk-in freezer and fridge in the summers.
“Learning to cook breakfast for myself on a restaurant grill.
“Catering and dishwashing, chatting with the waitresses, receiving hand-me-down clothes from one of the waitresses.
“Moose legs in the back of the kitchen were common. A black bear on the kitchen floor. I was playing in the dining room and was ready to go back to my bedroom in the basement, and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the bear.
“Family Sunday lunches. Dad would always make fried rice noodles.”
“Our everyday family dinner consists of mom, my sister, and I sitting at the table, with my uncle. My dad would sit on his oil can in the kitchen, just in case an order came in.”
Back of the book
If you read ‘Where is Gah-Ning?, the author recalls this walk in detail at the back of the book.
And the graveyard visit with Robert Munsch has a great deal to do with your family. Your grandparents and parents came to Hearst when it is an early Canadian immigration story?
“This is a story in itself… It’s what led to my wanting to write about my family’s history. There are so many layers and holes to my discoveries and the stories so far. I don’t think I can really tell my story without telling my family’s story.
“When as a child, I wanted an identity separate from my family, but in Chinese culture, it doesn’t work that way. I spent a lot of my 20s running away from my family to figure out who I am as a person and to find myself. It took more than my 20s to discover who I am. But I wouldn’t be me without my family.
“The graveyard visit with Bob came with the value our family placed on honouring our ancestors and what my grandmother meant to me.
“I wanted to introduce Bob to my grandmother. She was the one that would always encourage me to draw – mostly to keep me out of my parents’ hair.
“She was always present when my parents were busy in the kitchen. She was always the one that comforted me when I came home from school crying because someone teased me. She’s also my memory of Chinese home cooking and comfort foods. My grandmother was an amazing cook.
“Every Victoria Day weekend, my family would honour our ancestors with a visit to the cemetery. We would always start with my great-grandfather’s and my mom’s uncle’s graves. They are at the back of the cemetery.
“We would then visit with my grandmother. These were the best visits, because Mom would participate in the ceremony with Grandma. Chinese tradition says that only men, children and single women can participate in the ceremony. We changed the rules for Grandma, so Mom could honour her as well. She was the matriarch of the family.
“In my family, my grandparents were not the first to arrive in Hearst; they didn’t even arrive together.
“Uncle King was the first one to arrive in December 1959, as a teen/pre-teen. As an adult, he sponsored his family: parents and siblings in the 1970s, around 1971-72. His siblings and parents arrived one by one. My aunt, my mom’s younger sister, is the first to arrive in 1977. My grandmother arrives in 1979 with her youngest son. Another of my mom’s younger brothers arrives in 1980. My grandfather arrives in 1981, with the last of my mom’s younger brothers. My parents and I were the last to arrive in 1982, on Halloween.”
Along the way
Over the years, there have been many interactions.
In 1991, Bob had booked a show in Kapuskasing.
“He arranged to stay at my uncle’s and to visit my school, Clayton Brown Public School (CBPS), while he was in the area,” Tang said. “Bob was testing out the story during this tour and told me that he had changed the story. I was now flying away on hundreds of balloons instead of a hot air balloon.”
Bob became a Member of the Order of Canada in 1999.
“Bob had written to me about the experience and how he had a mishap with his suspenders. So, I drew a caricature of him with his suspenders breaking. My Mom wasn’t too impressed. Bob and I thought it was funny.
“One, I had a university student staying with me by the name of Anne Hui, looking for me. She found me through my sister. She introduced herself and told me she was writing her thesis on Robert Munsch. I invited her to the fundraiser. She now writes for the Globe and Mail and has published a book.”
In 2010, Bob was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame.
“I can’t remember the month, but I remember him writing to me and saying he wanted me to attend with him and the family, but they wouldn’t allow it. It was family only. I was shocked and touched. I said I was okay and he should enjoy the moment with the family. It was well deserved.”
At university, Gah-Ning asked the Director of Residence if she could invite and pay for Bob’s ticket to our residence’s semi-formal Christmas dinner.
“He said yes and waived the fee on one condition: Bob tells stories. Bob is telling stories in a suit and tie to a room full of university students in semi-formal attire, in the cafeteria of the residence.”
When I returned to Conestoga College. My roommate, and now friend, was in the early childhood education (ECE) program. She had convinced me to convince Bob to speak to the ECE class that year. It was her class. Apparently, they had asked him every year, and he politely declined. My friend and Bob confirmed this fact. Bob did speak to the ECE class.”
While walking around downtown Toronto, Tang went looking for the star.
“I went looking for it and found it on the south side of King Street, near Roy Thompson Hall and across from the Royal Alexandra theatre. I posted my find on Facebook. People started looking for it. The comments were wonderful to read. I met the Canadian author, Karen Spattford-Fitz, in the comments. She mentioned that Where is Gah-Ning is one of her daughter’s favourite books.”
Another tribute.
“I found my grade three teacher and arranged a dinner for her to meet Bob. It was also my way to say thank you to her for introducing me to Robert Munch books and letter writing.”
Tang will visit Bob and Ann in the very near future. She knows his remaining time is precious and a visit is in the offing.
The book’s storyline is like this, from the book jacket.
A young girl, Gah-Ning, wants to go to Kapuskasing, that bustling hub of northern Ontario civilization. But her father doesn’t want her to go. He knows what happens to people when they go there–they shop until their money runs out–but she decides to go anyway. First, she tries to go by bike, then on roller blades, but each time her father finds out and takes her back home. Then she meets a clown who is giving out balloons. She takes 300 of them and begins floating off down the highway.
What happens? You will have to read the book no matter how old you are, and you will find out about the chicken balls.
When you drive into Hearst, you see the sign saluting NHL player (Ottawa Senators) Claude Giroux, who was born there.
There’s no sign to tell you so, yet, where another form of inspiration was born for an author and another Hearstite.
Back roads encourage you to observe and appreciate the world around you. For one young girl, it was – as well as a well-known author – both knew.
I think I will contact the Mayor of Hearst and maybe meet His Worship Roger Sigouin at the King’s Café.
