David’s Father had a very strange beginning. I made this up soon after we adopted our second child. Her name was Julie and she was five and a half years old when we got her. Every night I would tell Julie stories before she went to bed and David’s Father was the longest running bedtime story ever. I told this story every night for four months.
Julie kept changing it and changing it and asking for different things. She put in all the things that interested her. She wanted to have a little girl who was afraid to go to school because she was afraid of meeting strange people and being kidnapped. She wanted to have a father who didn’t look at all like the child who was adopted because she was brown and I was white.
So I told it and told it and told it and told it. It was her very own story and I didn’t tell it to anybody else for a long time; and then one day, a couple of years later, I was in the middle of storytelling to lots of people and I said, “Hey, I wonder if David’s Father would work?” So I tried it out and it did.
A little later my publisher heard it and said “Hey, that’s a really neat story. Let’s make it into a book.” So I did.
The last picture in David’s Father, where Julie and David are talking and the Grandmother’s big ugly leg is off on the side, was actually the idea of Michael Martchenko.
I get lots and lots and lots of letters from kids that have pictures of David’s Grandmother and each letter says “Dear Bob Munsch: Please write me a book about David’s Grandmother. I want to find out what happens to David’s Grandmother.” I have never been able to figure out a good ending to tell about David’s Grandmother.
