Meet the family who gave us Babar!

In France, once upon a time, two brothers very close in age, had a nice mother who was a musician and a nice father who painted pictures. When the younger boy, Mathieu, was four, he got a sore throat, and his mother Cecile, who told the boys bedtime stories every night, knew that she had to tell a particularly good story to take Mathieu's mind off his troubles. She made up a story about a little elephant who lived in the jungle and rode happily on his mother's back and played with his friends until a wicked hunter shot her. The baby elephant -- Cecile called him "Baby Elephant" -- was thrust alone into the world to make his way as he might. He made his way to the city, was lucky enough to find some money, got himself outfitted nicely, and learned the ways of man. We won't tell you more because we don't want to spoil the story for you.

Jean and Cecile de Brunhoff

Mathieu and his older brother Laurent liked the story very much and repeated it to their father, Jean de Brunhoff. They asked him if he would draw pictures for the story and he said he would try. He gave Baby Elephant a proper name, Babar, and invented a kind old lady who took an interest in him, gave him money, and helped him learn the ways of man. He took time out from his oil painting and did beautiful watercolors to illustrate the story. Everyone who saw the pictures and the text Jean de Brunhoff had written underneath them thought they were wonderful and ought to be published. As it happened, Jean's brother, Michel de Brunhoff, was a publisher, and he arranged to have The Story of Babar printed and sold. This was in 1931.

Mathieu and Laurent de Brunhoff
	Laurent and his Mother

The Story of Babar was enormously successful and was translated from French into English and many other languages. Jean did another Babar book and another -- and then three more. But before the last two were in print, in 1937, Jean, who was only 37 at the time, died of tuberculosis, leaving his wife a widow with Laurent and Mathieu and Thierry, a third son.      The wicked hunter shoots Babar's mother (from The Story of Babar)

Laurent was twelve when his father died, and it was already clear that he had inherited his father's talent as an artist. It turned out that it also made him very happy to draw elephants, and that, like his father, he had a gift for making them do all kinds of things that they didn't usually do! He started writing and illustrating Babar books himself in 1946 and has been doing them ever since. Many people never realized there was any change in the author and illustrator of Babar, assuming that the ten years' gap between the last book and the next one was because of the war. Some people look very startled when Laurent says he is the author of Babar because they think he must be almost 100 years old. He is always careful to explain that his father was the creator of Babar and that he has merely continued his inspiration, largely to keep his father and his childhood alive for himself.

Cecile, who first made up the story of Babar, is 99 and lives in Paris. She looks very much like the nice Old Lady whom Jean invented in 1930 [click to see]. Laurent lives in the United States, but he goes often to France to see his two children, his brothers, and his mother.

This is Laurent on the porch of his house in Key West.

To read in French Laurent's tribute to his father, click here