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panNever read Babar as a kid, never paid much attention to it, but as an adult I can only see the weird bourgeois assimilation angle. The narrative has him watch his mother die, escape from the wild into the city to become a "civilised" gentrified elephant, then head back into the wild in splendour to marry his cousin & rule over the rest. To be fair, the art is lovely. But otherwise, kind of an iffy story. #ChildrensClassicRead2023 @TheBookHippie
batsy Yet another eye-opening children's read and an intriguing comparison to Bambi. This essay by Faiza Guene on Babar is a lovely piece https://lithub.com/on-babar-model-of-integration-or-crumbling-myth-2/ (I enjoyed Guene's Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow.) 2y
AlaMich I have never read it either, but it sounds weird from your description. 2y
batsy @AlaMich As a kid I would have probably just loved the adorable elephant! But now there's an underlying message that is not great. And looking it up I see that it's something that's been discussed for some time. 2y
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Bookish_Gal I loved the book as a kid. Show too. Since my class on analyzing children books, my whole view has switched upside down. While I‘d never say I saw that as a kid, it‘s so clear as an adult. 2y
GingerAntics I‘m seeing a lot of the problems now, too. It‘s kind of sad. 2y
TheBookHippie Ooo thanks for the link. I‘m always amazed at what we learn in this journey of reading children‘s classics. 2y
batsy @Bookish_Gal Yes! It's definitely hard to see it as a kid, I think. Because it's stuff that comes with experience and knowing how the world works. But a great book for parents and kids to discuss together. 2y
batsy @GingerAntics It's sad when beloved childhood faves take on a different tone in adulthood. I hope you read Guene's essay that I linked in the replies. I love that she mentions that she'll still treasure what she loved about it as a child. 2y
batsy @TheBookHippie Yes! And I found it really illuminating that this came after Bambi. Two very different books using animal story analogies with an underlying theme on survival. 2y
batsy @TheBookHippie *of survival 2y
TheBookHippie @batsy I agree one hundred percent!!! 2y
merelybookish "kind of an iffy story" ? #understatement 2y
AnnR A good review @Batsy. I didn't care for tale either. Even the anthropomorphized illustrations bothered me. What baby elephant who had recently watched his mother be killed would immediately head to the city and seek out a tailor's shop to buy a suit? Beyond the gentrification issue, in a way, the story just seemed silly. 2y
GingerAntics @batsy I can‘t even remember what I loved about it as a child. That‘s the weird part. 2y
batsy @merelybookish 😆 2y
batsy @Ann_Reads Great point! It was overly twee and Babar is a blank slate of a character. 2y
Suet624 My mother never read Babar to me - she was a Just So Stories fan. But I read the book to two of my kids and a stepson. My only answer to why I never questioned what I was reading is that I had too many kids, too many jobs, too much drink by the time bedtime came along (that was a long time ago now) and my brain was fried. 😊 2y
batsy @Suet624 Oh for sure, Sue. We do the best we can 🙂 There was a lot of racism in the Enid Blyton books I loved as a kid and that my nephews used to ask me to read to them—they grew out of it faster than I did and identified the troubling bits when they were older. So maybe the kids are alright 💕 2y
tpixie @Suet624 ❤️😂❤️ 2y
