African Elephant

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Lore & Background

After Babar's mother is shot and killed by a hunter, he flees the jungle and finds his way to an unspecified big city with no particular characteristics. He is befriended by the Old Lady, who buys him clothes and hires him a tutor. Babar's cousins Celeste and Arthur find him in the big city and help him return to the Elephant realm. Following the death of the King of the Elephants, who had eaten a poisonous mushroom (the illustrations indicate that it is a fly agaric), a council of old elephants approach Babar, saying that as he has 'lived among men and learnt much', he would be suitable to become the new King. Babar is crowned King of the Elephants and marries his cousin, Celeste. In Jean de Brunhoff's second Babar book, The Travels of Babar, when the married couple leave by balloon on their honeymoon, stormy winds down the balloon on an island, and yet again will the royal couple escape by whale, be marooned on an even smaller island and be rescued by a passing ocean liner only to be turned over to an animal trainer and put to work in a circus. And when they escape and return home, what awaits them but war with the rhinoceroses. It was sparked when Arthur tied a firecracker to the tail of Lord Rataxes. Babar wins the war by having the elephants paint monster faces on their backsides, which cause the frightened rhinoceroses to run away. In the third book, Babar the King, Babar founds the city of Celesteville. After many dromedaries are found, they help with building the city. Each elephant citizen is given a job to do. Once the city is built, everyone celebrates. However, problems arise; the Old Lady is bitten by a snake, and Cornelius' home catches fire. Babar has a dream where he is visited by Misfortune and other demons which are chased away by elephant angels representing Courage, Hope, and other virtues. The morning after the hopeful dream, the Old Lady and Cornelius make full recoveries.

In Their Own Story

In 1931, Jean de Brunhoff introduced Babar in Histoire de Babar, and Babar enjoyed immediate success. In 1933, A.A. Milne introduced an English-language version, The Story of Babar, in Britain and the United States. Before his death in 1937, Jean de Brunhoff published six more stories. His son Laurent de Brunhoff, also a writer and illustrator, carried on the series from 1946, beginning with Babar et Le Coquin d'Arthur. An animated television series, Babar was produced in Canada by Nelvana Limited and the Clifford Ross Company, running from 3 January 1989 to 5 June 1991, with 65 episodes. An additional 13 episodes aired in 2000. The character has also appeared in a number of films. The first two of Jean de Brunhoff's Babar books have inspired two major concert works: L'Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant (The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant) by Francis Poulenc in 1940; and The Travels of Babar (Le Voyage de Babar) by Raphael Mostel in 1994. In 2010, an animated sequel and spin-off, Babar and the Adventures of Badou, was released, introducing new characters, including Badou, Babar's grandson and Pom's son. It takes place several years after the original series.

Reader's Guide

Babar, who likes to wear a bright green suit, introduces a very French form of Western civilization to the elephants, and they soon dress in Western attire. The attention to stylish clothing perhaps reflects the fact that the original publisher of the books was Editions du Jardin des Modes, owned by Condé-Nast. The Babar books were the first Condé-Nast publications not specifically about fashion. Author Maurice Sendak described the innovations of Jean de Brunhoff: 'Like an extravagant piece of poetry, the interplay between few words and many pictures, commonly called the picture book, is a difficult, exquisite, and most easily collapsible form that few have mastered....Jean de Brunhoff was a master of this form. Between 1931 and 1937 he completed a body of work that forever changed the face of the illustrated book.' The series has over 100 licensees worldwide, and the 'Babar' brand has a multi-generational following. A global cultural phenomenon, whose fans span generations, Babar stands along with Disney's Mickey Mouse as one of the most recognized children's characters in the world. There are now over 30,000 Babar publications in over 17 languages, and over 8 million books have been sold. Laurent de Brunhoff's Babar's Yoga for Elephants is a top seller in the U.S. with over 100,000 copies sold to date. The Babar series of books are recommended reading on former First Lady Laura Bush's national reading initiative list. All 78 episodes of the TV series are broadcast in 30 languages in over 150 countries, making Babar one of the largest distributed animation shows in history. Babar has been a perennial favourite for years at the White House Easter Egg Roll. Since 2001, the Babar franchise has been owned by Corus Entertainment's Nelvana in conjunction with the artist, Clifford Ross.

Did You Know?

• Babar first appeared in 1931 in the French children's book Histoire de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff, based on a tale invented by his wife Cécile for their children.
• Babar's mother is killed by a big game hunter, and the King of the Elephants dies from eating a poisonous mushroom (a fly agaric, per the illustrations).
• Babar wins a war against the rhinoceroses by having his elephants paint monster faces on their backsides, frightening the rhinos into running away.
• An animated television series, Babar, ran from 3 January 1989 to 5 June 1991 with 65 episodes, with an additional 13 episodes airing in 2000.
• There are over 30,000 Babar publications in over 17 languages, and over 8 million books have been sold.