Survivor to Storyteller with Dan Munday
A chance wildlife encounter inspired Dan Munday to write and illustrate a series of children’s books combining fun wordplay, feisty characters and a forward-thinking eco message that he hopes will inspire a generation of kids to get creative with the things they already have. Rebecca Jamieson Dwyer turns the page on the weird and wonderful world of ‘Frank & Stein’…
While it’s said that everyone has a book inside them, not many of us ever have the tenacity to bring our ideas to life. But for Dan Munday, former producer of the US show Survivor and co-founder of Sunny Coast Showdown, the characters of Frank and Stein – two resourceful, creative kids who work together to transform discarded soft toys into superhero hybrid creations – stayed with him for a few years before he was compelled to bring them to life.
“While I was bushwalking at Mount Tinbeerwah one day, I watched a chook and a kookaburra having a scuffle and the word ‘Chookaburra’ popped into my head. It made me chuckle, and was soon followed by ‘Kangamoo’, ‘Crabbit’ and ‘Raterpiller,’” he said.
“As the list of characters grew, so did their world. Where did these creatures come from? They were sort of Frankenstein-esque, which led to the idea of two kids named Frank and Stein who make new toys out of broken ones.
“These characters sat at the back of my mind for about four years, until I found myself in hospital for a couple of weeks and finally began writing their story.”
The words flowed easily, and before Dan knew it he’d written a funny, engaging, uniquely Australian rhyming tale – something he describes as “Dr Seuss meets Monty Python with an environmental and social bent”.
Of course, every kids’ book needs fantastic images, so Dan reached out to an illustrator in the USA to help him storyboard the first edition. He soon realised that for Frank and Stein’s world – ‘Yanoosa’ (a hybrid of Yandina and Noosa, the places Dan grew up and now lives), to truly come alive and feel like home, he’d have to try and create it himself.
“I’d been drawing since I was a kid, but nothing on this scale, so it was a very intimidating task to take on,” he recalled. “The initial drawings were so crude, and I thought I’d never get there.
“But I knew my own kids were watching me and I really wanted to practise what I preach when it comes to resilience, so I knew I had to walk the walk and ended up surprising myself.”
As Dan brought Frank and Stein to life visually, the characters subconsciously started to reflect his own kids.
“Frank’s the designer of the duo because my nine-year-old son draws a lot and loves the design process, whereas Stein’s in charge of the making because my daughter is a maniac with sticky tape and loves building things,” he said.
“Seeing themselves reflected in the characters has made my kids so engaged, and now they love suggesting new animal ideas and drawing them for me, which is really cool.”
The first three Frankenrhyme books, Kangamoo, Crabbit and Raterpillar, are packed with laugh-out-loud dad jokes and entertaining stories. Beyond the humour, they carry an important message, encouraging young readers to embrace recycling and creativity by repairing and reusing items instead of throwing them away.
“Our world is in an environmental tailspin, and our kids hold the key to turning it around,” Dan said. “They can pave the way toward a more sustainable future by rediscovering old-school skills like fixing, repurposing, and creating something new with what they have.
“If I can get some kids on board with fighting a fight that they’re going to have to fight, then that’s powerful.”
Growing up on a farm in Yandina, Dan came from a family of recyclers, where most things were secondhand and repurposed. This came in handy during his time as a producer on Survivor, where he used many of the same skills that Frank and Stein rely on, including problem-solving and transforming existing materials into something new.
“My whole Survivor career was about putting two strange things together to make a Survivor Challenge,” he recalls. “We’d often be shooting in the middle of nowhere with no resources and the timber shipment was late, and we’d have to think ‘What have we got around us?’ so making something from nothing was really my superpower.”
As the final piece of the puzzle (or the final piece of the mutant animal?), Dan’s mum recently surprised him with his favourite childhood kangaroo that she’d kept for more than 40 years. It showed that Dan had tried to repair his toy as a child by adding a coathanger into its neck and stitching it up.
“Discovering that as an eight-year-old, I had effectively ‘Frankensteined’ my own toy was quite a weird, full-circle moment for me,” Dan explained.
Not to be outdone, Dan’s mum has now taken up the family repurposing mantle, saving broken toys from thrift shops and transforming them into ‘Granny Munday’s Mutant Monsters’, which Dan gifts to children at markets when selling his books. Dan has nine more Frankenrhyme books in the works and plans to release one every quarter for the next couple of years, as well as speaking at local schools and running workshops for kids to introduce them to the magic of making new things from old.
“I love talking to kids because they’re engaging, their ideas are brilliant, and they’re open to new ideas,” he said. “I’ve worked on so many shows over the years that are fun and entertaining but don’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things, so I’m really glad to be creating this – it’s a message that feels important.”
BUY THE BOOKS
Find Frankenrhyme books in local bookstores including:
- Village Bookstore, Noosa Heads
- The Junction Bookstore, Noosa Junction
- Annies Bookstore, Peregian
- The Little Book Nook, Palmwoods
- Berkelouw Books, Eumundi; and
- Rosetta Books, Maleny
For the latest outlets or to purchase the book online and vote for the next creature creations, visit www.frankenrhyme.com.au
WIN!
Frankenrhyme Book Set
Discover Frank and Stein’s secret workshop and magical adventures with signed copies of Frankenrhyme books, Kangamoo, Crabbit and Raterpillar. Visit www.innoosamagazine.com.au/win to WIN one of two sets of three books valued at $40.
PLUS, are you a budding artist?
Send your own hybrid animal illustration to hello@inpublishing.com.au with ‘FRANKENRHYME CREATURE’ in the subject line for a chance to be featured on our Facebook page and win a set of signed Frankenrhyme books!
