The Story of Babar

The Story of Babar

By Jean de Brunhoff (Egmont)
ISBN: 978-1-4052-3818-2

Babar the Elephant has been charming readers for generations and Egmont have re-released five of his earliest adventures for another bunch of children and adults to fall in love with.

This volume first appeared as L’Histoire de Babar in France in 1931 and was an instant hit. The English language version was launched in 1933, complete with introduction by A. A. Milne, bringing Jean de Brunhoff’s forthright and capable elephantine hero across the channel and thence across the Oceans to America and the Colonies. Apparently the initial tale was a bedtime story his wife Cecile created for their own children. De Brunhoff wrote and painted seven adventures before his death in 1937, two of them published posthumously. After World War II his son Laurent continued the franchise producing ten more adventures between 1946 and 1966.

The books have in their time been controversial. Many critics have seen them as being pro-colonialism, and as products of a more robust time, they could never be regarded as saccharine or anodyne, but they are sweet, alluring and irresistibly captivating.

When baby Babar is growing up in the jungle his mother is killed by white hunters. Terrified and sad the baby flees in a panic, eventually coming to a very un-African provincial city. He meets a kind old lady there who gives him money to buy a suit. As he adapts to city life he moves into her very large house and is educated in modern, civilised ways. But still, occasionally, he feels homesick and misses his jungle home.

After two years he meets his cousins Celeste and young Arthur wandering naked in the streets of the city and the Old Lady gets them clothes too. Soon though, their mothers come to fetch them and Babar decides to return with them and show the other elephants all the wonderful things he has experienced. Buying a motor-car and filling it with clothes and presents he returns just in time, because the King of all the Elephants has eaten a bad mushroom and is dying…

The political assumptions of adults are one thing, but the most valid truth is that these are magical books for the young, illustrated in a style that is fluid, humorously detailed and splendidly memorable. Even after 75 years and more they have the power to enthral and captivate and that charm is leavened with an underlying realism that is still worthy of note.

My only concern is that in an age of computer screens and instant messaging the cursive script of the text might deter a few readers. I applaud the publishers for not replacing it with block letters and hope I’m wrong, as usual, because these are wonderful books for the young of all ages and species.

2008 Edition. All Rights Reserved.