In February of 1988 I was at the Toronto Storytelling Festival and I made up a story for a kid named Alice. She did not like to take baths. Eighteen years later I was at a friends in Guelph who liked to have bonfires. He had such a huge fire that night that the fire department came and put it out. I looked at the huge pile of smoking ashes and thought “If Alice had fallen in that pile, it would explain why she needed a bath.” Unfortunately, I had not kept track of Alice, so I made up the bath story for the two of the kids tending the fire. That is how Adam and Janna got in the story and the book is set in their backyard.
Down the Drain!
Written by Robert Munsch.
Illustrated by Michael Martchenko.
Published by Scholastic Canada, 2009.
