Very socialist. There are no homeless people in Celestville. But the flamingoes have been well and truly displaced. How can they get their food when there are elephants diving into the river? Babar's nightmare is anthropomorphic and allegorical. ( )

I think it a safe bet that this might be the oldest memory in my Year of Nostalgic Re-reads. Not the oldest book, but this takes me back to maybe eight years old. I came across it on openlibrary.org and remembered it clearly. We never read any of the Babar stories to our children, so it's been nearly 45 years. I remember loving the illustrations, but being confused at the curious tense, and the references and names (translated from French and written in the 1930s).

I couldn't find an ebook of The Story of Babar, but openlibrary did have this third book. For any interested, some of the scans were off center. ( )

This book was very suppressing to me. The story starts out showing a young heard of elephants living on the plains of Africa. One of the opening stages of the book shows a hunter shooting Babar's mother. I thought that this was a very violent way of opening the book. There were other very interesting, and almost inappropriate scenes in the story. I would not recommend this story to teachers. This was a book I had read as a child, but I did not remember these kind of themes in this book. This was not the best book to use in the classroom. ( )

Super racist colonial propaganda. ( )

Originally published in 1933, this third Babar book picks up just where its predecessor, The Travels of Babar, left off, as Babar, Celeste and the Old Lady adjust to being back in the land of the elephants. When all of the many goods he purchased on his recent travels arrive by special dromedary delivery, Babar puts his grand plan into motion, proposing that the elephants build their own city, to be named Celesteville after their queen. All goes according to plan, and soon the pachyderm metropolis is a reality. But just when all seems well, and the elephants are celebrating their achievement, a double tragedy strikes, in the form of a snakebite that leaves the Old Lady gravely ill, and a house fire which injures wise old Cornelius. As Babar slips into a troubled dream that night, the question hangs in the air: which will triumph, Misfortune or Happiness...?

Although I do recall reading them as a young girl, I can't say that the Babar books have ever been amongst my particular favorites - they're interesting, the artwork is lovely, but the stories never really appealed to me, and I did not read them again and again, as I did some other titles. I would imagine that those readers who perceive in these books an apologia for colonialism (see Should We Burn Babar?: Essays on Children's Literature and the Power of Stories) will be incensed at the story here, in which Babar, with the Old Lady by his side, brings "civilization" to the elephants, in the form of urban development. For my part, I continue to waffle, as it concerns the question of Jean de Brunhoff's worldview and storytelling intent. Did he mean these books to be a glorification of France's colonization of Africa, or as a gentle parody (as Adam Gopnick has argued) of it? If the latter, does that mean that they are less problematic? I have no answers, but the parallel between France and Africa in the early twentieth century, and the humans and elephants in these stories, seems fairly clear. There were no "fierce cannibals" here, as there were in The Travels of Babar - something for which I am grateful, given the offensive way in which they were portrayed - but I can't honestly say I enjoyed the story that much. Leaving aside all political and/or ethical issues, it just felt a little disjointed to me. ( )