I won’t spoil the story by telling you how this happens, but Guy Parker Rees, the illustrator of Brave Dave, was kind enough to tell me that he did have a little tear in his eye after first reading it. I also wanted to write about something that I personally find incredibly moving – which is witnessing ordinary people commit to each other with unconditional love in the face of great jeopardy. But he’s a weedy little grizzly bear who loves not poetry (as I did) -but flowers the ultimate symbol of vulnerability, beauty and peace. This is of the utmost importance when we are young, and our sense of self is malleable, delicate, and not yet fully formed.įortunately, the title BRAVE DAVE just popped into my head, and I knew that Dave had to be the most testosterone-fuelled animal of all – a grizzly bear. So, I thought, yes – this is what I want to write about the idea that we should all be allowed to be proud of who we are, particularly when we don’t conform to lazy stereotypes.
In fact, I was so weedy that I was the only boy I knew who was bullied by girls! I was a skinny, weedy, little redhead who loved writing poetry and hated playing rugby. When I was a child, I was what you might have called at the time (the 1970s) a bit of a “girly” boy. Now, one thing I feel strongly about is for children not to feel as though they need to conform to stereotypes – and in particular to the most common stereotype of all – that of gendered behaviour. I once read that bravery is about choice – doing the difficult thing when there’s an easier way. I like this. The idea for BRAVE DAVE came about because I was considering how often we use the word “brave” with children. We say, “Come on, be brave, be brave!” but what does beingbrave REALLY mean? It’s much more than just not crying when they graze their knees, simply because we don’t want to listen to the noise! BRAVE DAVE – A piece by Giles Andreae about the inspiration behind his touching story.
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