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4.08.2003
Cécile de Brunhoff, Creator of Babar, Dies at 99
In 1930, Cécile de Brunhoff told her sons, Mathieu and Laurent, a bedtime story about an elephant who leaves the jungle to live in Paris. Mathieu and Laurent told the story to their father, Jean de Brunhoff, an artist and book illustrator, the next day he turned his wife's story into a book called "The Story of Babar". Yesterday, at the age of 99, Cécile de Brunhoff died.
I adored Babar as a kid. I had the kind of enthusiasm for Babar that only a child can have for something he loves. My Mom and Dad would read me the stories constantly, and there were over forty in all. I don't know if it was the beautifully illustrated drawings that seemed to come from a different universe entirely or if it was simply that the elephant's name was fun to say, but I could not get enough of Babar. The things that happened to Babar were not unlike the things that happen in many children's books, but Babar seemed to take it all in with a sense of detached wonder. Clearly, being from the Indian jungle, he had picked up some Buddhism.
He was also defiantly not cute. His eyes were mere pinpricks and his ears were wrinkly. Compared to today's saccharine, google-eyed cartoons, Babar was downright homely and I loved him for it. Babar's genius was that he showed kids just how ridiculous the lives of grown-ups are, but also how fun it is to be a part of it all.
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