Babar the Elephant

Jean de Brunhoff wrote just a few Babar tales before he died--at forty--of tuberculosis.

The tales began as little night-time monologues--stories Jean would tell his children. (Amy Bloom published her own children's book after having invented a small, talking sweet potato, in various soliloquies, for her grandkids.)

God is in the details--and you see Jean de Brunhoff getting carried away, delightfully, from the first page onward. Babar's mother soothes Babar in just the way we would imagine for an anthropomorphic elephant; she rocks Babar with her trunk while softly singing. Babar has a good time with his friends; he digs in the sand; he has found a way to clutch a shell, a digging tool, inside his trunk.

For an adventure story, you must kill off the parents. And Jean de Brunhoff does this briskly, confidently--right around page three. Mom is gunned down by a hunter.

And so we have a fish-out-of-water tale: Babar runs away to the city, Babar tries on spats (whatever spats are), Babar has too much fun riding the elevator at a kind of Bloomingdale's.

It's a pleasure to spend time in Jean de Brunhoff's imagination. Sendak called him the true ancestor of James Marshall. (Tomi Ungerer also has this title.) I look forward to more outings with Babar!

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