Babar is not quite happy

March 25, 2024 2:36 PM

Laurent de Brunhoff, ‘Babar the Elephant’ author, dies aged 98 [CNN]; Laurent de Brunhoff, l’un des pères de Babar, est mort [Le Monde]; Décès de Laurent de Brunhoff, père d’un Babar controversé [Le Soir]

Representations of French Colonialism in The Story of Babar the Little Elephant [PDF]
Freeing the Elephants; [The New Yorker; ungated]
On Babar: Model of Integration or Crumbling Myth?

posted by chavenet (37 comments total)

I learned to decipher cursive so I could read some of the Babar books from my local library. I later realized that Babar was problematic and an image from a more innocent time time more forgiving of colonialism, but I will always be grateful for the magnetic stories that urged me to overcome difficulties to read more.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:44 PM on March 25 [7 favorites]

Aw... They were deeply flawed and plus the picture of poisoned Cornelius scared the shit out of my young self, but I loved those books.

How on Earth was Laurent de Brunhoff alive this whole time!? Amazing.
posted by Don Pepino at 2:53 PM on March 25 [21 favorites]

(Oh, right: it was a father and son operation. Nevertheless. I remain amazed.)
posted by Don Pepino at 2:58 PM on March 25 [4 favorites]

Never really read any of the books at an age old enough to realize they were colonialist in nature, but their art style was deeply influential on children's book illustration across generations and is still something I can conjure up in my mind's eye instantly.

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posted by hippybear at 3:08 PM on March 25 [7 favorites]

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posted by Songdog at 3:19 PM on March 25

🐘
posted by clavdivs at 3:35 PM on March 25 [7 favorites]

I read these books in the early 70s when I was a kid and they were so out of date then that I assumed the author had already been long dead. I'm stunned he's still alive.
posted by dobbs at 3:37 PM on March 25 [6 favorites]

Literally NOT still alive, hence this post.
posted by hippybear at 3:38 PM on March 25 [7 favorites]

Babar was always one of my favorites, growing up. He sits side by side with Madeline in that his world was so alien compared to, say, the Berenstain Bears--I was either too young to understand the concept of books being written in other countries, or no one bothered to explain it to me--I was about to say I treated it as fantasy, but well, yes, you would treat a talking elephant as fantasy. But that was different than talking bears who clearly lived in America!

(I guess, because it was fantasy, the sort of wish-fulfilment that works with kids--the fear of losing parents, the hope of being around people who understand and support you, the dream of returning home and coming into your own--it would not occur to me to embark on the sort of criticism mentioned in the CNN piece. "de Brunhoff omits all the plundering, racism, underdevelopment and misery from his story..." Like...I don't know what kind of children's book that criticism envisions?)
posted by mittens at 3:49 PM on March 25 [22 favorites]

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posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 3:55 PM on March 25

Profoundly beautiful...
posted by Czjewel at 4:09 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]

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I don't know what kind of children's book that criticism envisions

I tend to agree--agree hard, in fact--but I will say that yankeefog's picture book published last year, which I read this weekend, handles war, migration, Nazis, and ghettos... and it's sweet and moving. I'm not sure how ready the world was for critical children's books in the days of Babar, but there seems to be more room these days.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:16 PM on March 25 [4 favorites]

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posted by mdoar at 4:44 PM on March 25

>they were so out of date then that I assumed the author had already been long dead.

It sounds like the guy who died is the SON of the guy who did the first books, who died in the 1930s.

"Writer and illustrator Laurent de Brunhoff, who continued his father’s legacy by producing dozens of original books for his “Babar the Elephant” series, has died aged 98.

De Brunhoff was just 12 when his father died of tuberculosis, in 1937, having published five books for the series."
posted by Sing Or Swim at 5:07 PM on March 25 [9 favorites]

I had no idea he was still around. Along with various Dr. Seuss titles, I would check out the Babar books from my local library constantly when I was a kid. Later, as an adult, I bought The Art of Babar from a used bookstore on a whim. Of course, I'm well aware of the Babar books' problematic aspects now, but even as a kid, I knew these were older stories, with all that entails.

Also, elephants were one of my favorite animals when I was little. I wonder how much Babar had to do with that.

Thanks for all the stories, Mr. de Brunhoff.

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posted by May Kasahara at 5:09 PM on March 25 [3 favorites]

I have similar a similar experience. Loved those books when I was a child. As a parent, I had to ban them from the house because they woulda damaged my children. Colonization is a helluva drug.
posted by SnowRottie at 6:01 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]

Goku can now fight Babar in author heaven.
posted by fnerg at 6:14 PM on March 25 [3 favorites]

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posted by doctornemo at 6:14 PM on March 25

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Kiddo brought one home from the library the other day and holy yikes. This reminds me I have to go to the branch and fill out the special "i'm not saying you should censor this, I'm saying you should put it in the section for children's literature studies, and not like, mixed in the bin for toddlers" form
posted by stray at 6:25 PM on March 25 [6 favorites]

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That said, I'm glad children's books are doing better these days and hopefully teaching children better values then we were taught will improve the world.
posted by Canageek at 6:53 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]

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posted by riruro at 7:04 PM on March 25

So, um, I'll be unhappy I did this, but okay.

The thing is, the Babar books were SUPER present in schools in the Seventies when I was in grade school, and also were still in schools in the Nineties when I was working in the public schools for a while.

And I guess, you know, we've got this whole book banning thing going on right now, and I'm not in favor of banning the books, but I can see how maybe they shouldn't be available at school? Like maybe in the public library which is a different kind of space catering to a different set of needs, but to have the books in literally every first grade classroom, as they were, and even to have the Big Books that are oversized books that are put on an easel and read by the entire class at once? That used to happen. Maybe that should be deprecated.

Sometimes kids are forced to read books simply because they're in the classroom. We think a bit more deeply about the books we read to kids now than we used to and I think that's a good thing. Babar was largely read to kids because it was a picture book with simple stories, and the teachers weren't thinking much about the books beyond that. It's okay that maybe Babar would be a child's choice at the public library now rather than read to them by a teacher with them having no choice in the matter.
posted by hippybear at 7:21 PM on March 25 [5 favorites]

Count me among the folks who couldn't believe the author was still alive, until figuring out the father/son thing. I considered painting Babar's queen on my Bianchi once, but never got around to it. (If you know you know.)
posted by St. Oops at 9:40 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]

Mod note: One removed. Guidelines: "Be considerate and respectful ... add your own informed perspective and nuance instead of shutting others down."
posted by taz (staff) at 11:02 PM on March 25 [3 favorites]

Like...I don't know what kind of children's book that criticism envisions?
Babar, who has joined the revolution and taken to wearing a dashiki when he is not in full battle camouflage, emerges from the jungle with a couple of white invaders skewered on his tusks. He trumpets in triumph, gathers his followers, and heads off to France in a dirigible to wreak ruin on France. "Kwa Paris, wandugu! Hivi karibuni tutatazama Notre Dame ikiungua! Lakini kwanza lazima nilipize kisasi kwa Bibi Mzee ambaye alijaribu kuharibu roho yangu!"
posted by pracowity at 1:24 AM on March 26 [4 favorites]

Like other commenters, I remember reading some of the Babar books in the 70s as a young child. Even back then, they seemed to be from another time to my eyes. I too had no idea that the son had continued the stories after his father had passed away. Perhaps that's because I never really took to the Babar stories — back then I was much more of a fan of the Asterix books, as well as the various Doctor Who novelisations. I have fond memories of browsing at the local library to find titles I'd not read yet.
posted by SpiffyVoxel at 2:23 AM on March 26 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the propaganda wasn't subtle. You start with your bog-standard elefants, happily going about their day in the savannah, and end with those elefants in suits and gowns, with jewels, and lorgnettes, watching a performance in their newly built opera house.

But at the time, those besuited and bespectacled and bejwelled elefants seemed to me the height of sophistication. I also had the over-sized version of the book, and I particularly loved the grand double-page-spread about the forces of civilization - allegories of all sorts of virtues, prudence, progress, science, order etc, represented by elefants in flowy white gowns, with laurel wreaths and flaming swords - expelling the forces of darkness, vices, chaos, disease. The drama of the composition! I immediately recognized it later, on the ceiling fresco of a baroque church, the imperial forces, backed up by heavenly support, expelling some heathen army, commissioned to celebrate a decisive victory over the turks.

It's propaganda, but it's also art - the images go straight to the id, and they stay with you. And that makes it dangerously powerful.

I won't throw away my Babar book. I might even still read it to a hypothetical niece or nephew should they ever materialize - with critical commentary. But I wouldn't put those books on any preschool-curriculum.
posted by sohalt at 4:32 AM on March 26 [8 favorites]

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posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 4:51 AM on March 26

I find Adam Gopnik's defence of the Babar books (in Freeing the Elephants, linked above) quite persuasive: that the books should be read not as a celebration of the mission civilisatrice but as an ironic comedy of bourgeois life.
posted by verstegan at 4:55 AM on March 26 [3 favorites]

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posted by Gelatin at 6:13 AM on March 26 [2 favorites]

I always found the artwork and images irresistibly beautiful. I am not the only one it seems.
posted by vacapinta at 6:30 AM on March 26 [6 favorites]

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posted by trip and a half at 8:26 AM on March 26

To clarify, I wasn't particularly yikes about the depictions of monarchy/class in the book my kiddo brought home, it was the super racist caricatures used to depict a tribe of cannibals Babar and his wife had to escape from. Not something I want kiddo stumbling across.
posted by stray at 8:27 AM on March 26 [3 favorites]

I didn't have these as a kid. My kid and I did watch the animated series, which was much more "Babar's kids get into trouble and learn things" and occasionally the Rhino guy would show up.
posted by emjaybee at 10:26 AM on March 26 [1 favorite]

I don't know what kind of children's book that criticism envisions

I tend to agree--agree hard, in fact--but I will say that yankeefog's picture book published last year, which I read this weekend, handles war, migration, Nazis, and ghettos... and it's sweet and moving. I'm not sure how ready the world was for critical children's books in the days of Babar, but there seems to be more room these days.

Wow-- thank you! That means a lot to me. I’m very proud of What Rosa Brought. I’m 52, and I’ve been an author for three decades, and I feel like it has taken me literally my entire life to reach the point where I could write about those subjects in a picture book.

I loved Babar when I was a kid, but I haven’t read it as an adult, so I can’t really comment on it. But in general, I think children’s books should do at least one of four things:

1. Reassure.
2. Raise questions
3. Give answers.
4. Entertain.

For example, in What Rosa Brought, when it came to the Nazis, I wasn’t trying to reassure my young readers. There will always be people who hate you because of who you are, and that is never going to be OK, and it would be dishonest for me to pretend otherwise. When it came to the Nazis, I wanted to raise questions, because that’s honestly all I can do in the face of unfathomable evil.

On the other hand, I was trying to reassure my readers when I depicted Rosa’s relationship with her mother, father, and grandmother. Having people you love and trust won’t make the bad things in life magically vanish — but it will help you cope with the sadness and fear that those bad things bring. Conveying that specific reassurance is one of the most important things a children’s book can do.

In the case of Babar, I think the criticism is that (along with entertainment) it’s serving up the wrong reassurance— it’s reassuring its readers that colonialism is OK because the colonized are inferior. Again, I haven’t read the books for decades, so I don’t know if that’s actually what the books do. But in general, it's not an unreasonable kind of thing to criticize.

It’s worth noting that, as per the CNN article, de Brunhoff himself agreed with the criticism (at least for certain books in the series):

“I think it’s right. Absolutely,” he told the magazine. “In some way, it’s a little embarrassing to see Babar fighting with Black people in Africa. My second book, ‘Babar’s Picnic,’ was also inspired by my father’s drawing. Some years later, I felt embarrassed about this book, and I asked the publisher to withdraw it.”

posted by yankeefog at 10:27 AM on March 26 [15 favorites]

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posted by porpoise at 9:10 PM on March 26

I liked the books and TV show as a kid, but I've never rewatched them. Yeah I can't imagine they hold up. I think what I enjoyed most was how they seemed to give a taste of the adult world, and a sense of what the wider world might be like outside my parent's living room in a northeastern US city. Now that I think about it, Babar is one of the few examples of kids' entertainment where the main characters aren't children. I bet that's what I liked about it.

I got a lot of the same kind of enjoyment from Ducktales, probably for a lot of the same reasons.

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posted by panama joe at 9:01 AM on March 27