Meet-the-Author Recording with Swapna Haddow and Dapo Adeola

My Dad Is a Grizzly Bear |

Swapna Haddow and Dapo Adeola introduce and share some of the backstory for creating My Dad Is a Grizzly Bear.

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Swapna Haddow: Hi, my name is Swapna Haddow and I am the author of My Dad is a Grizzly Bear

Dapo Adeola: And my name is Dapo Adeola and I am the illustrator of My Dad is a Grizzly Bear.

Swapna Haddow: I live in New Zealand, but I did originally come from the UK, so that's why I have a very British accent.

Dapo Adeola: And I am still living in the UK, and that's probably why I also have a very British accent.

Swapna Haddow: I was absolutely thrilled when I saw Dapo's work for My Dad is a Grizzly Bear. I was really lucky because often, this is a little secret, publishers don't really let the illustrator and the author sort of get together and get to know each other, but Dapo and I are rule breakers. So we communicated and he would send me little progress shots of his illustrations. And I just loved it. So I got to see sneak peaks, but nothing prepared me for seeing Grizzly Bear in the full color proofs, which were just absolutely stunning. It was like he'd gone into my head and pulled out these things that I'd been seeing for so long. I guess it started with my son, who genuinely thought his dad was a grizzly bear for a while. He basically put together his dad having a big beard and eating lots of honey and thought he was a grizzly bear. And that was the inspiration for the story.

Dapo Adeola: Of all the texts that I received, Swapna's text stood out to me the most because it was the most funny text. It was humorous and it just had a great pace and a great beat to it, and one thing that I look for when I'm looking at a new text is, as I'm reading the text, can I envision the story? Can I picture, can I almost illustrate the story as I'm reading the text? And Swapna's texts allow me to do that quite easily. So yeah, it was just a no-brainer basically.

The dad was the main character. So getting the dad right, getting him correct, getting his feel and his vibe correct was the most important thing. And I think I managed to do that. The size comparison, having him quite large and quite massive whenever he's on page was an important thing as well, because it gave us a little bit of comedic effect having this sort of giant grizzly bear and these small kids, and just seeing them engage with each other. Also, Swapna's writing again, gave me great jumping off points to pull out the comedy in the book and the text. I think this was my first time working on a text that had that kind of comedy in it. So yeah, it was definitely a challenge, but I got to draw a grizzly bear, so that in itself was a very fun thing to do.

Swapna Haddow: I think my hope for children when they're reading this book is to go away and look at their world more imaginatively. I think it's really fun to sort of spy on your parents and think, "Oh, that's interesting. Maybe they're a giraffe or something." I think it'd be really fun for them to just go away and just be more curious about the world and question things and be okay with things not making sense in a sort of normal adult way that things make sense.

Dapo Adeola: So whenever I work on a book, especially a book that doesn't have a specific kind of message behind it, I just want the kids to have fun. I want them to be able to revisit the text and experience something new each time they look at the illustrations, for example. That's something that I enjoy doing, layering the spreads with loads of kind of tidbits that you can find and enjoy each time you have a read. You want the reader to come back to the book and you want them to have a new experience almost each time. So, yeah, that's what I'm hoping kids get from this. Just enjoy the book, have fun, have a good read.

Swapna Haddow: And now I'm going to read from My Dad is a Grizzly Bear.

Shh. Beware. My dad is a grizzly bear. He has the fuzziest fur that scratches and scritches. Mum laughs and teases him when he gives her big sloppy kisses. He chases me and my sister, growling and waving his enormous paws because he is a grizzly bear. He eats all the honey in the house. It drips off his crumpets and sticks to his whiskers, drip, drip, drip. He never leaves any for me, because he is a grizzly bear.

This Meet-the-Author Recording with Swapna Haddow and Dapo Adeola was exclusively created in June 2022 by TeachingBooks with thanks to Red Comet Press.