Laurent de Brunhoff was only twelve years old when his father died. His failing condition and the fact that he created the books with his own children in mind may well have inclined him to present sorrow in as straightforward a manner as possible, artfully offering consolation to his young audience that even the crudest blows can be survived.

Jean de Brunhoff’s tuberculosis was diagnosed in the early 1930s, as he was beginning the books.

The plot then proceeds briskly, compelling the elephant and perhaps readers as well to go forward and get on with their own lives. He cries but does not tarry in his mourning, fearfill that he too might be shot. Within the first few pages of The Story of Babar the little elephant sees his mother killed by hunters. The elder de Brunhoff’s Babar books were kind-hearted portrayals of family and community life yet, at the same time, unflinchingly direct in their depiction of tragedy. Between 19, he completed a body of work that forever changed the face of the illustrated book.” His books, as Maurice Sendak once observed, “have a freedom and charm, a freshness of vision, that captivates and takes the breath away. Subsequent editions have taken every imaginable shape and form, but the luxuriously large volumes are still the best way to fully appreciate Jean de Brunhoff’s mastery of the picture-book form. The original Babar books were oversized in format, with the text printed in script. Six more Babar books by Jean de Brunhoff followed quickly, including Babar and His Children (1938) and Babar and Father Christmas (1940), which were published after his death. Their enthusiasm for the tales encouraged their artist father to shape them into illustrated books, beginning with The Story of Babar (1933). The inspiration for Babar came from Madame de Brunhoff, Jean’s wife, who told stories about a little elephant to amuse her young children. Created by Jean de Brunhoff in the 1930s, continued by his son, Laurent, in the following decades, and available now in every manner of merchandise, the character has enthralled generations of children all over the world with his Victorian rectitude and pachyderm panache. If there is a universal symbol for childhood, Babar the elephant is probably it.

The story of babar 1933