Love You Forever [Turtleback]

Robert N. Munsch (Author)

Product Details

• Turtleback
• Publisher: Demco Media (October 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0606024700
• ISBN-13: 978-0606024709
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 8.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,184 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,712,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

267 of 313 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful, Touching Parable, February 3, 2001

By 

Mark Jones (Watkinsville, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Love You Forever (Paperback)

This little classic is readily and easily digested by one who has known the true love of a mother. My mother gave me this book during the first Christmas with my new baby daughter in 1992. I had no idea that within the year, my father would be gone, and I would begin to give tender care to my precious little mother who would begin "getting very sick" much like the mother in the book. I cried a bucket of tears as I read it aloud with my wife, mother and father for the very first time. When my mom passed on, it was a tender and precious time at her bedside, and very reminiscent of this tender little book.

Today, my two girls go for it regularly on my shelf at bedtime. They tease me because I can't get through it without crying. Funny to me that they have a very good grasp of allegory and they, unlike some of the book's critics, understand that the scenes with the mother coming to the man's apartment are actually his memories of her love. They understand, as I explain to them that the love poured into the son by his mother, has taught him how to love his new baby daughter at the end.

Love begets love, and this little childrens' parable is a powerful reminder! I highly recommend _Love You Forever_ to anyone who enjoyed a wonderful love with their mother. To others, I'm sorry but you simply won't (and obviously don't) understand. It's not written for you.

82 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving Story about Loving Your Child, December 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Love You Forever (Paperback)

This is a fantastic picture book that is a metaphor for the overwhelming love one feels for their child (no matter what age). For all of those readers who can only read in co-dependent, Oedipal, or Freudian themes into this book, you have missed the entire point and have hearts of stone! The fact is that the author Robert Munsch wrote this book as a tribute to his TWO still-born children and that makes this story even more moving especially if you've lost a child or had a miscarriage. The story is an expression of imagining his kids and what they would have been like and how much he would have loved them their whole lives. I found this to be a very emotional and touching story (and I am not a sentimental woman at all). My 3-year-old, rough and tumble, only-loves-the-outside-and-trucks kind of boy really likes this story and has been requesting it for bedtime almost every night. He especially enjoys the verse that is the theme of the book, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as you're living, my baby you'll be." My son wants to hear us say that to him. And again to all those who wrote and thought that this book was "sick"; face it, you might not have liked how this book was portrayed, but you'll love your kids forever, no matter how old they'll get, and in spite of what they will do throughout the phases of their lives that might frustrate you. In fact, my husband likes this story so much that he plans to get it for his mother for Mother's Day. This is a must-have children's book!

59 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for your kids or your mom, June 12, 2000

By 

K. Bennett (Rolla, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love You Forever (Paperback)

This is another one of those books I can't read without having to dab at my eyes. Any loving parent, or child of a loving parent, will recognize the overwhelming love the mother in this story feels for her son. When her son is a newborn, she rocks him and sings to him, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, As long as I'm living my baby you'll be." When he's asleep, she rocks him and sings him that song through each stage of his childhood. When he's a grown man with his own home, she drives over to his house with a ladder, makes sure he is fast asleep, climbs through his bedroom window, then rocks him and sings to him (my husband thinks this is a little strange, but I'm convinced that there are plenty of mothers out there who would do the same if they thought they could get away with it).

The tears come when the mother gets sick, and can't finish the song. Her son then holds her in his lap, rocks her, and sings to her. Then he goes home, picks up his newborn daughter, and sings. The illustrations are a beautiful complement to the story. Not only does the son grow up, but the mother slowly grows older. Her house keeps its old-fashioned look, even down to the rotary phone on her bedside; his house is more modern, with up-to-date kitchen appliances. The mother has a striped cat that appears in several illustrations of the boy growing up. In his house, there is a kitten, that grows into a cat, that turns into a rather large, well-fed cat by the end of the story.

Not only am I sharing this book with my kids, but I gave my mom a copy for Mother's Day.