Children's book: King Babar

Overview
Jean de Brunhoff’s 1933 picture book King Babar follows the newly crowned elephant monarch as he learns to govern and transforms his forest realm into a modern, orderly city. The narrative moves through a series of richly imagined episodes, administration, city planning, civic life, and conflict, showing Babar’s blend of courtesy, practicality, and ingenuity. Familiar companions such as Celeste, the Old Lady, Cornelius, Pompadour, and the monkey Zephir recur, framing a vision of leadership grounded in education, civility, and communal celebration.

A king at work
With the old king gone and the crown on his head, Babar exchanges the adventure of his earlier stories for the steady tasks of rule. He listens to petitions, writes down plans, and assigns responsibilities. Cornelius, the wise elder with spectacles, becomes his chief counselor; the punctilious Pompadour helps with protocol and order. Celeste, poised and resourceful, is both queen and partner in planning daily life. The Old Lady, who once introduced Babar to city habits, remains close, sharing practical knowledge and gently coaching the court in manners and organization. Through calm decision-making and kindness, Babar sets the tone for a kingdom that values learning and cooperation.

Building Celesteville
Babar’s most ambitious project is a new capital. He lays out streets, squares, parks, and public buildings, and names the city Celesteville in honor of his queen. Scenes bustle with elephants measuring, hammering, driving, planting trees, and painting houses; the activity itself becomes a lesson in collective effort. Institutions spring up, a school for the young, a hospital, a museum, a theater, each signaling a facet of the civilized life Babar envisions. Practical touches, from traffic rules to mail delivery, blend with play spaces and promenades, suggesting a balance of work, health, culture, and leisure. When the city opens, Babar stages a grand procession that doubles as civic orientation: uniforms, bands, and floats parade past the newly built landmarks, and the citizens see themselves reflected in the orderly beauty they have created.

The rhinoceroses and a test of leadership
Peace is strained when rhinoceroses from the neighboring country menace the elephants. War looms despite Babar’s preference for harmony. He responds not with bluster but with planning, outfitting his forces and keeping morale high while seeking an end to the quarrel. Skirmishes occur, yet the turning point comes through cleverness rather than force: Babar devises a stratagem that startles and confuses the rhinoceroses at night, breaking their will to continue. By morning, he invites talks, presses for a truce, and makes sure that victors and vanquished leave with dignity intact. The episode confirms his authority while affirming the book’s recurring idea that intelligence, restraint, and ceremony are stronger foundations for order than brute strength.

Peace and pageantry
With the threat ended, Celesteville returns to its rhythms. There are concerts and festivities, and the Old Lady’s presence anchors a bridge between the human city that once sheltered Babar and the elephant city he has built. Domestic scenes of meals, lessons, and games underline the story’s gentle humor and its faith in good habits. The final pages dwell on spectacle, uniforms brushed, flags lifted, the streets gleaming, as if to say that shared rituals bind a community as surely as laws. By the end, Babar has proven himself not only a king in title but a patient builder of a civic ideal, one that promises prosperity through cooperation, imagination, and grace.