After your parents died, did you discover in their papers any new information about what inspired your father? Rose: We discovered a maquette [rough draft] for the story of Babar, on which Jean de Brunhoff had put himself and Cecile, his wife, as co-authors. De Brunhoff: My mother was absolutely against it, because she thought that even if she helped the idea, the whole creation was my father's.
I didn't know there were two branches of the family—African and French. Can you tell us about that? In the s, one of the family relations, Giselle Bunau-Varilla, traveled to Africa.
She ended up in Kenya, where she settled. According to the story, while she was on safari in the Belgian Congo, she shot an elephant. Afterwards, she discovered that she was pregnant and vowed she would never shoot another elephant. It also focused that branch of the family on conservation work. De Brunhoff: [Smiles sheepishly] He knew there were these cousins who were going off into the Congo, shooting elephants. In , my father also visited the Paris Colonial Exhibition. This was very important for the history of Babar.
They imported a whole tribe from Africa and built a village. That's probably where my father got the idea for the huts in Celesteville. It made a huge impact on the imagination of Parisians. De Brunhoff: It was inspired by this island next to Key West, which belongs to a friend of ours. Phyllis created the story about the storm that pushes the boat onto the reef.
It was an adventure for me to go there too. You've done some offbeat Babar books in your time. Would your father have approved of Babar's yoga book? De Brunhoff: I don't know about that. Now I do it by myself every morning after my cup of coffee, for 20 minutes. It's a sort of meditation and a nice way to start the day, physically. But I can still stand on one leg.
De Brunhoff: There's of course a part of me that's still French. But I feel like an American these days. We met at a party. The publisher Nabokov was there, and he was making her laugh a lot. After dinner we sat down on the sofa together. She said, I love your work. I said, I don't know your work, but I love your eyes. And that was the start of it. I moved here in I can show you, except that unfortunately it's quite empty now because we're packing to go to Key West.
It's a color study. I usually do three or four, sometimes even eight, before I do the final colors. When I've finished the color, I draw the black lines around the figures. Very precise. With my pen. Then Phyllis puts the dialogue in. These days it's done by computer. Rose: As research for this book, I went and took photographs of Paris. Not all of them. Some of them are in the gallery. He did so many studies. Such a huge amount of work! De Brunhoff: [With an impish smile] Babar always says, "Pas de panique.
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Your account has been created. Upload book purchases, access your personalized book recommendations, and more from here. GOT IT. As impressed as everyone else was, Babar had managed to construct a new vision of life for himself - a vision that would never be lost as long as everyone participated in its upbringing.
Babar is a very smart and reasonable soul. He is also very protective of his family, as the thought of the Hunter killing his mother was sealed inside his mind, and would never allow such a thing to happen to his family. He is very skilled in thinking critically and always knows that there was more than one solution to the same problem. He is always thinking positively and takes great consideration in the feelings of others.
He strongly believes in freedom and everyone is entitled to certain rights, and uses equality and fairness as the motivation for his behavior. This is shown in episodes like Time Flies where he found it hard to believe his son Alexander insisting that he had virtually witnessed the landing of a time machine.
On the contrary, he is also very prone to superstition, and holds some of his own far-fetched beliefs, such as in the episode A Child in the Snow where he had always told himself that the Great White Mammoth was not a mythical creature and that it really existed in the mountains.
We can see through these examples, that although Babar is straightforward and takes all possible perspectives into account, his slightly naive side can and does occasionally get the better of him.
Other than this, he has no other signature pieces of clothing. He is of modest height and seemed to be somewhat overweight; however this can be argued. As a ruler, Babar took a long time to confirm important decisions and always ended up gathering outside influence while in the process of making them.
He carries a tremendous amount of responsibility on his shoulders - as frequently mentioned by both Pompadour and Cornelius.
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