Laurent de Brunhoff, who revived his father's picture-book series "Babar the Elephant" and was among the creators of the television series based on the books, passed away over the weekend at the age of 98.
His widow, Phyllis Rose, revealed that he died at their home in Key West, Florida, after being in hospice care for two weeks.
De Brunhoff, born in Paris and moved to the United States in the 1980s, was only 12 when his father, Jean de Brunhoff, died of tuberculosis. The original book, "Histoire de Babar" (1931), was created by his father following a story his wife used to tell Laurent and his siblings before bedtime. Before he died in 1937, the father published six more stories in the series.
"My mother started telling us the story to distract us," said the younger de Brunhoff in an interview with National Geographic in 2014. "We loved it, and the next day, we went to our father's studio to tell him about it. He found it very amusing and started drawing. And that's how the story of Babar was born. My mother called it 'Baby Elephant' (in French Bebe), and my father changed the name to Babar. But the first pages of the first book, when the elephant's mother is killed by a hunter and he escapes to the city, that was her story."
After World War II, de Brunhoff began studying at the Grand Chaumière Academy of Art. In the mid-1940s, he decided to continue his father's book series, publishing dozens of books in it. Throughout his life, he also created additional children's books, such as "Bonhomme" and "Serafina," and his illustrations, as well as those of his father, were featured in various exhibitions worldwide.
However, the book series has also faced numerous criticisms over the years. Many parents were dismayed by the fact that in the original story, Babar's mother was shot and killed by hunters. Additionally, many critics labeled the series as racist and colonialist, as Babar receives a European education despite his apparent African origins. In 1983, the Jewish-Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman stated that the book presents a story that "justifies and rationalizes the causes of the international situation where certain countries have everything and other countries have almost nothing."
The writer and illustrator was married twice. His widow, the critic and biographer Phyllis Rose, also wrote texts for many of the character's recent publications, including the book released in 2017, "Babar's Guide to Paris," which was announced as the last one.
De Brunhoff had two children, Anne and Antoine, but the author did not write with young readers in mind. "I don't think about children when I create a book," he told The Wall Street Journal in 2017. "Babar was my friend, and I invented my stories with him, not thinking about the children who would read them. I wrote it for myself."