Thomas’ Snowsuit was made up in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I was talking to teachers about how to tell stories. Somebody said “Hey Bob Munsch, would you like to tell some stories to kids in daycare?”
I said that would be nice. So they called up all the daycare centres in Halifax and said “If you want to have stories by Bob Munsch come out to Mount Saint Vincent University.”
About three hundred kids came. They were three, four and five years old.
When I walked into the room and saw them I said “Oh Dear, I am supposed to keep them happy for an hour. I don’t have enough stories to keep three year olds happy for an hour.” And I didn’t. After forty-five minutes I ran out of stories.
I looked at the kids and they were all wearing snowsuits. I thought it must have been hard getting them into the snowsuits. I made up a snowsuit story about a little boy named Thomas who didn’t like to put on his snowsuit. The kids liked it because every time Thomas didn’t want to put on his snowsuit he yelled “Noooooo” and all three hundred kids would start yelling “Nooooo”.
It turns out that kids love to yell no. I use “no” a lot in my stories. Whenever I can’t think of what to do next I figure out some reason for somebody to yell “no”. Kids will always join in yelling “no”.
