Jean de BrunhoffRecensioni

I want to love Babar, but this was a fairly traumatic read for my 3 year old. She could not get over the death of Babar's mom, and bored quickly of the main story. Not to mention he marries his cousin???

This book has all the lively and humorous features of all the other Babar the Elephant tales, the brightly colored, warm, and friendly drawings of our beloved elephant royalty, the antics and escapades of the elephants themselves, and, of course, our hero, King Babar once again, saving the day, in this book, a most important day, Christmas!

Arthur, Pom, Flora, Alexander, the royal elephant children, and their monkey pal, Zephir, write Father Christmas a wish list letter and are saddened when he doesn't reply; this ultimately leads to Babar's realization that the Elephants' Country needs to be on included on his regular route, so he goes to valiant lengths to make his childrens' wishes come true. Babar and Father Christmas become fast friends, and Father Christmas even takes a much-needed rest in the tropical climate of Babar's country. The way de Brunhoff has drawn Father Christmas is quirky and fun and a bit different from the image we have of him today, but it entirely captures the essence of this beautiful holiday icon. If you have loved other Babar stories, you will surely love it as I did. If this is your first meeting with Babar, it stands alone well.

This story is about Babar, the elephant, and his adventure to the city and how he adapts when he he meets a welcoming older woman. As the story progresses, Babar goes back to his family in the jungle because he misses them. Additionally, Babar shares his new knowledge about the city with his family and he becomes their king.

Contains: The Story of Babar, The Travels of Babar, Babar the King, Babar's Birthday Surprise, Babar's Mystery and Babar and the Wully-Wully.

52393

https://nextshark.com/colonialism-kids-racist-origins-babar-elephant

This article changed my mind completely about what this book is about. While I can understand that boundary's of permissibility keep changing. I feel that in this day and age such books should not be encouraged or kept in library spaces (without any engagement about the context it was set in).

Good book to introduce Racism and Colonialism to children.

When Babar learns about Father Christmas he leaves to find him and invite him to visit the children of the Kingdom of the Elephants. He shows persistence and resourcefulness in his search which is rewarding for him and Father Christmas - and a good life for a little dog too.½

One of my favorite picture books. I actually have both an English and French version of this too. My mom got it for me when she went to France. I can't read it in French though. Sometime I should read both side to side. Might help me learn some basic French. I like the non-translated one for the art.

When a hunter kills his mother, the little elephant Babar is so frightened that he runs away and ends up in a big city. He buys himself some nice clothes and accepts a nice Old Lady’s invitation to live at her house. Time passes, and then Babar has an unexpected meeting with his elephant cousins, who have run away. When their mothers come to fetch them, Babar decides to return to the forest with them, where he will become the king of the elephants.

The story and the lovely illustrations have enchanted generations of children. It doesn’t appeal so much to this adult. There doesn’t seem to be much substance to the story, although I might feel differently about it if I had fond childhood memories of reading it. Also, I don’t like stories where animals die.

Odd little childrens book. A minor quibble, elephants live in a matriarchy, so not only is this not educational its actively uneducational :P .
I'm sure there must be some other versions of this book but the one i read had hand-written text!, and in cursive! Even i had issues deciphering a word here or there but i can only imagine the horror on a child's face if they were handed this :lol. And their growing horror if they actually managed to figure out what it says ;) .

There are several dark moments in this which are not well dealt with to say the least. Also Babar is elected King rather than inheriting it, which seems a nice change... until you find out why he in particular is elected. Part of me wants to think it's a biting satire on elections but i suspect not :lol.

The art's still nice though :) .

The usual charming story about Babar, King of the Elephant Country, who is searching for Father Christmas to invite him to visit the Elephant children, as he has never done so before.
Some wording may be problematic these days, and Babar smokes.

You will have to read this aloud even to older kids, because no one learns cursive writing anymore.

The print in this miniature is also very small, and was difficult for my old eyes.

(Dates for most recent reading.)

J’ai besoin de practiquer français et ce livre est parfait!

A book I quite liked as a kid, but it's becoming very dated, and it does not handle death or the matriarchy of elephants well at all. The older this book gets, the more it becomes one of those tucked away hidden from sight books that might just need to become a memory, certainly not for reading to kids at bed time, you'll be explaining some fairly mature topics with them until they get tired, if you try.

Like the others. Deadpan, strange, kind of violent, wonderful illustrations.

It's the illustrations that really make these books. I could not fail to enjoy the deadpan treatment of the children's predicaments. The baby elephant is accommodated in a squirrel hole when he is ejected from his pram and hurled over a cliff. That is truly remarkable.

Zephyr is promoted to a full character in his own right; he is no longer the pet monkey given as a gift to the Old Lady at the end of "The Travels of Babar". Polemoche has left a lot of stone people all over his island; he may not be savage, but he is capricious and wicked. Why is the proper reward a betrothal to the "Princess Isabelle"? Why is she a princess anyway, when her father's title is "General" and "President"? The monkeys' village seems very pleasant, one monkey has a mini-castle in the trees, and Zephyr rushes into his mother's arms like a true French boy. The send off at the start of the book, where the monarchs and Zephyr's best friends wave to him as he departs on the train is endearing.½

Very socialist. There are no homeless people in Celestville. But the flamingoes have been well and truly displaced. How can they get their food when there are elephants diving into the river? Babar's nightmare is anthropomorphic and allegorical.

Deadpan again. The Old Lady is just so delighted to have two naked elephants in her living room. And where she finds a nightdress for Celeste I can not fathom. Arthur does an obnoxious thing and starts a whole war; there's a point there. I wonder if Rataxes is ever seen again.

When I was a kid the gash in Babar (or Celeste's) rear from a spear, and the other spear being pushed with great vigor into that same rear gave me the willies. Lots of anger in the story, against the cannibals, the ship's captain, and rather justifiably on Rataxes part against Arthur.

Grim and deadpan, good illustrations.

"The Story of Babar" follows a young elephant exploring a big city. When Babar was little, his mother was killed by a hunter and he ran to a nearby city, where he was taken in by an old woman. He became fascinated by human culture, buying clothes and food. Eventually, he returns to his home in the forest, where he is crowned king of the elephants. He gets married, and he and his wife decide to go on many adventures. I thought the book was very cute, especially with the addition of the soft illustrations. There isn't much to say about the story, as it is very short and simple, but I did enjoy it.½

Charming, but to me, also disturbing.

Sharing classics with my kids.

I think it a safe bet that this might be the oldest memory in my Year of Nostalgic Re-reads. Not the oldest book, but this takes me back to maybe eight years old. I came across it on openlibrary.org and remembered it clearly. We never read any of the Babar stories to our children, so it's been nearly 45 years. I remember loving the illustrations, but being confused at the curious tense, and the references and names (translated from French and written in the 1930s).

I couldn't find an ebook of The Story of Babar, but openlibrary did have this third book. For any interested, some of the scans were off center.

An orphaned baby elephant goes to live in the city with an old lady who gives him everything he wants, but eventually returns to the forest

«Babar. Todas las historias» es un maravilloso recopilatorio que reúne por primera vez en un solo volumen todas las aventuras de Babar: uno de los personajes más populares de la historia de la literatura infantil, que sigue hechizando a generaciones enteras de pequeños lectores (y no tan pequeños). «Babar, todas las historias» incluye los seis libros de Babar escritos e ilustrados por Jean de Brunhoff: «Historia de Babar, el pequeño elefante», «El viaje de Babar», «El rey Babar», «Las vacaciones de Zefir», «Babar en familia» y «Babar y Papá Noel». Contiene textos nunca traducidos hasta ahora recuperados de las ediciones originales, un prólogo inédito de Maurice Sendak, ilustraciones a todo color y encuadernación de lujo con cuatro cubiertas diferentes.