The Story of Babar by Jean De Brunhoff

I read Babar when I was younger and loved it. I was very surprised to see it on the list of controversial books. It was hard for me to imagine Babar being controversial so I went through it and looked at the text from a critical eye. At first I did not see anything that I would consider controversial by any means but when I began to look at the illustrations I started to understand why this classic children's book could subject to such criticism.


In the book Babar runs away from home, which resembles a a certain warm, tropical continent, to a town, that seems to resemble a certain city in Europe, and there he becomes sophisticated. Through a series of events Babar returns to his home where he is crowned king. At first I thought that this book could address classicism and because when Babar returns from his adventure in the city he is very sophisticated and well groomed. Eventually he get voted king of the elephants. This is what I though until I looked at the website, Blisstree.com (http://www.blisstree.com/articles/the-15-most-controversial-picture-books-366/). On this website I read that the reason for Babar being controversial is because it advocated for colonialism of the African countries by the French. This political message could be offensive to some and proves that even timeless children's books, which are meant for the enjoyment of children, are not free from political messages