Babar's enduring appeal

BABAR, the storybook elephant created by the artist Jean de Brunhoff, reached the venerable age of 75 this year. France issued a commemorative stamp to celebrate what has become an epitome of French culture and a major export earner. But there hasn't been much notice in the United States except for an undercurrent of belief that Babar is too sexist, racist, or imperialist for children today. An overly-scrupulous reader can find all sorts of messages in the 30 or so Babar books published since 1931, but the basic themes, as laid out in the first ``Story of Babar," are enthralling, innocent, and reassuring.

I've practically memorized the book from repeated reading to three children, starting more than 20 years ago. I pulled it out of storage the other day and was once again captivated by the simple plot: Babar is living idyllically in the jungle with his mother, until she is killed by a hunter. He flees to the big city (is it Paris?), where he is befriended by the Old Lady, who dresses and educates him as a French gentleman. Steeped in the knowledge of man, he returns to elephant land where he is elected the king (the incumbent having died from eating a bad mushroom). He marries his cousin Celeste, has a grand party, and he and his bride leave on their honeymoon in a balloon.

The hard-cover ``Story of Babar" measures 14 1/2 inches high by 10 1/2 inches wide. It's huge by the standards of most children's books, and envelops readers in the story. Like many children's classics, the story concerns loss and grief , but doesn't dwell on either. Once Babar gets to the city , he is swept into a culture of knowledge and love. He goes up and down on an elevator; buys a green suit, shoes, and spats; learns arithmetic; and converses with the Old Lady's friends. And when his cousins Arthur and Celeste visit, he demonstrates his newfound sophistication by treating them to ``some good cakes" at a patisserie. I've enjoyed watching Arthur master this idealized French culture. My children did, too.

Others disagree. ``Imperialistic Propaganda for the kiddies," declares one of the few negative reviews of ``Story of Babar" on Amazon.com . Educator Herbert Kohl entitled a collection of essays ``Should We Burn Babar?" He concluded that we should not -- but we shouldn't buy the book, either. Kohl's main objection is that Babar, an African elephant, gains power from being Europeanized, and that Celeste is subservient to him. I suppose somebody reading this in 1930s France would have their prejudices about the benefits of French colonization confirmed. But children today receive many messages to counteract whatever they get from Babar. A nd the book is so unmistakably French that whatever imperialistic subtext it contains is lost on young American readers. The novelist Alison Lurie took a critical look at the Babar chronicles for the New York Review of Books a couple of years ago. A s is to be expected, she found that a few of the books were objectionable by any reasonable standards today, the most egregious being ``The Travels of Babar," immediate sequel to the first book, in which black Africans are caricatured as spear-wielding savages.

But she found that the Babar saga endures because children see themselves in the intrepid elephant. Like him, they like to ride up and down on elevators, and their lives are changing as they get new clothes, learn manners, and start their formal education in preparation for life beyond the immediate family. Perhaps Babar's quick recovery from his mother's death and his success in both the city and the elephants' country offer young readers hope that they, too, can master their new environments.

Looking at the ``Story of Babar," I'm reminded of many evenings snuggled up with a child, and this commodious book, and its familiar phrases -- ``some good cakes, ``bad mushroom " -- and my parenthetical explanation of those archaic ankle-coverings called spats. It's a tale that endures beyond ideology or prejudice. I wish my children were young enough for just a few minutes so I could read it to them again.

THOMAS GAGEN