Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

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Love You Foreverby Robert Munsch
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A mother held her new baby and very slowly rocked
him back and forth, back and forth, back and
forth. And while she held him, she sangI'll
love you forever,I'll like you for always,As
long as I'm livingmy baby you'll be.
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The baby grew. He grew and he grew and he grew.
He grew until he was two years old, and he ran
all around the house. He pulled all the books off
the shelves. He pulled all the food out of the
refrigerator and he took his mother's watch and
flushed it down the toilet. Sometimes his mother
would say,  "This kid is driving me CRAZY!"
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But at night time, when that two-year-old was
quiet, she opened the door to his room, crawled
across the floor, looked up over the side of his
bed, and if he was really asleep she picked him
up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth,
back and forth. While she rocked him she
sangI'll love you forever,I'll like you for
always,As long as I'm livingmy baby you'll be.
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The little boy grew. He grew and he grew and he
grew. He grew until he was nine years old. And he
never wanted to come in for dinner, he never
wanted to take a bath, and when grandma visited
he always said bad words. Sometimes his mother
wanted to sell him to the zoo!
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But at night time, when he was asleep, the mother
quietly opened the door to his room, crawled
across the floor and looked up over the side of
the bed. If he was really asleep, she picked up
that nine-year-old boy and rocked him back and
forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while
she rocked him, she sangI'll love you
forever,I'll like you for always,As long as I'm
livingmy baby you'll be..
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The boy grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He
grew until he was a teenager. He had strange
friends and he wore strange clothes and he
listened to strange music. Sometimes the mother
felt like she was in a zoo!.
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But at night time, when that teenager was asleep,
the mother opened the door to his room, crawled
across the floor and looked up over the side of
the bed. If he was really asleep she picked up
that great big boy and rocked him back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth. While she rocked
him she sangI'll love you forever,I'll like
you for always,As long as I'm livingmy baby
you'll be.
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That teenager grew. He grew and he grew and he
grew. He grew until he was a grown-up man. He
left home and got a house across town.
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But sometimes on dark nights the mother got into
her car and drove across town.
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If all the lights in her son's house were out,
she opened his bedroom window, crawled across the
floor, and looked up over the side of his bed.
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If that great big man was really asleep she
picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back
and forth, back and forth. And while she rocked
him she sangI'll love you forever,I'll like
you for always,As long as I'm livingmy baby
you'll be.
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Well, that mother, she got older. She got older
and older and older.One day she called up her
son and said,"You'd better come see me because
I'm very old and sick."So her son came to see
her.When he came in the door she tried to sing
the song. She sangI'll love you forever,I'll
like you for always...But she couldn't finish
because she was too old and sick.
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The son went to his mother.He picked her up and
rocked her back and forth, back and forth, back
and forth. And hes singing this songI'll love
you forever,I'll like you for always,As long as
I'm livingmy Mommy you'll be.
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When the son came home that night, he stood for
a long time at the top of the stairs.
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Then he went into the room where his very new
baby daughter was sleeping. He picked her up in
his arms and very slowly rocked her back and
forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while
he rocked her he sangI'll love you
forever,I'll like you for always,As long as I'm
livingmy baby you'll be.
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Love You Forever started as a song. "I'll love
you forever,I'll like you for always, as long
as I'm living my baby you'll be." I made that
up after my wife and I had two babies born dead.
The song was my song to my dead babies. For a
long time I had it in my head and I couldn't even
sing it because every time I tried to sing it I
cried. It was very strange having a song in my
head that I couldn't sing. For a long time it
was just a song but one day, while telling
stories at a big theatre at the University of
Guelph, it occurred to me that I might be able to
make a story around the song.Out popped Love
You Forever, pretty much the way it is in the
book.My regular publisher felt that it was not
really a kid's book and I ended up doing it with
another publisher.One day the publisher called
up and said "This is very strange. It is selling
very well in retirement communities in Arizona.
It is selling in retirement communities where
kids are illegal. This is supposed to be a
children's book. What is going on?" "Grownups
are buying it for grownups!"In fact, it turned
out that parents buy it for grandparents and
grandparents buy it for parents and kids buy it
for everybody and everybody buys it for kids.As
a matter of fact, everybody buys it for
everybody. That's why it sells a lot of copies. I
think it's my best book. So far it has sold about
15,000,000 copies.