Lesson in Babar tale gentle, wise Books featuring beloved elephant earn designation ‘saga’ in spades

BABAR AND THE SUCCOTASH BIRD, by Laurent de Brunhoff, Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 2000, 32 pages, $16.95.

There are 243 entries for Babar books on Amazon.com. Granted, some of them are foreign language editions (20 or so countries have translations) and a few are repeats, but let’s just say this series of children’s books earns the designation “saga” in spades.

The first Babar books were the work of Jean de Brunhoff, a French painter who was inspired by the story of a little elephant that his wife, Cecile Sabouraud, a pianist, told their two sons, Laurent and Mathieu, at bedtime. The boys related the story to their father who in turn created “The Story of Babar” (1931). Fortunate for him and us, he had a brother and brother-in-law in publishing.

Monsieur de Brunhoff completed five more Babar titles before he died of tuberculosis in 1937, at age 38 (the six original books have just been reissued by Random House in a single volume, “Bonjour, Babar!”). At the time of de Brunhoff’s death, Babar was appearing in serial form in a daily British newspaper. A.A. Milne, the author of “Winnie the Pooh,” gets credit for this: he was instrumental in bringing out the first English edition. “I salute M. de Brunhoff,” he once wrote, “I am at his feet.”

After the war, de Brunhoff’s eldest son, Laurent, then 21 and an abstract painter who had taken up residence in Paris’ Montmartre district, resurrected the king of the elephants, missing nary a beat as far as continuing his father’s vision of the pachyderm and his people. He looked upon creating the books as a way of connecting with his dead father. There was another reason, as well: “Babar, himself, was a friend of my childhood,” de Brunhoff said in an interview in the Hartford Courant in 1988, “and I wanted him to live on also.”

Unaware of the father’s passing, many people ascribed the interruption of the Babar series to World War II. Thus, when they came to meet the (new) author/illustrator, they were surprised to find a young man, not someone, as the son has recounted, sporting “a long white beard.”

The first title by Laurent de Brunhoff was “Babar’s Cousin: That Rascal Arthur,” published in 1947. With the success of that book and those that followed, de Brunhoff accepted what had been his father’s fate: The elephant books took precedence over his artistic endeavors and became the focus of his life. He has added 30 or so books to the Babar library, including the latest adventure, “Babar and the Succotash Bird,” the first new title since The Rescue of Babar appeared in 1993.

De Brunhoff, who moved to Connecticut in 1985, usually begins a book with a central story-line idea. In “Babar and the Succotash Bird” it is the encounter the King’s son Alexander has one night with the brilliantly plumaged Succotash Bird who is a wizard.

The illustrations range from simple vignettes to several of those double-spread images that have come to be a signature element of a de Brunhoff picture book (remember the cross section of Santa’s underground workshop complex in “Babar and Father Christmas”?) Perhaps the most striking visuals show Alexander, shrunken by a mischievous Succotash Bird, finding his way through a suddenly gargantuan world.

An essential, although perhaps overlooked, element of the Babar story has changed little over the years. Elephants that in real life have a rather clumsy appearance despite their choreographed moves under the Big Top – in de Brunhoff’s hands continue to pull off human movements with graceful ingenuity. Over the years, King Babar and his clan have used their trunks to play tennis, maneuver sailboats, shoot pool – even slam-dunk. Beyond its fancy, isn’t there something exemplary, even courageous, about this overcoming of physical limitations? Actually, it’s not strictly make-believe: The flexibility of an elephant’s trunk is such that it can pluck a single blade of grass.

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Laurent de Brunhoff in 1987, on the occasion of the opening of his first one-man show of original Babar watercolors at the Mary Ryan Gallery in New York. My wife and I took along our then 3-year-old daughter Emily, who gave a charming performance that led to an inscribed copy of “Babar’s Fair” with a line drawing of an elephant by the artist-author. The Ryan Gallery recently displayed the complete watercolors for “Babar and the Succotash Bird.”

Now 75 years old, de Brunhoff has referred to his elephant world as “a utopia and a gentle satire on the society of man.” He loves writing for children because “their minds are not burdened by preconceptions … not yet.” And he has sought, in his words, “to avoid any overdramatization of the events or situations that do arise.” Thus, the lesson of this new tale is a gentle but wise one: Don’t jump to conclusions. As the good wizard tells Alexander, “There’s more than one bird who can call ‘Succotash!’ That is how life is – right mixed with wrong. Like succotash: lima beans cooked up with corn.”