Shy, remote, dreamy. I loved to spend my time drawing. I was like my father: quiet. My brother Mathieu was more lively than I was – he eventually became a paediatrician and 
I would go on to work on Babar. 

 

So in our own ways we have always kept our connection to 
our childhood. As kids we spent part of our time in Chessy and part of it in Paris. Holidays in Chessy were the happiest times. There 
was never much extra space 
where we lived, so I shared 
a room with Mathieu until I was 
18. I studied fine art in university. 
It is something I love. 

 

 

 

One night our mother, Cecile, told us a story about a little elephant. A little elephant was happily playing in the jungle when a hunter shot his mother. The scared elephant ran away to a town where he found a lost purse in the street, enabling him to 
go to a large shop where, after 
playing with the elevator, he bought some clothes. Having thoroughly enjoyed himself in the town, he was persuaded by his cousins to return to the jungle.

 

The next day we repeated the story to our father in his studio. He began drawing illustrations for us in 
a sketchbook. Every day we went to see him and he showed us 
new pages. It was 1930. My mother also helped my father craft the ending of the actual book. The first Babar book came out in 1931. By the time I was ten, I was regularly sketching elephants myself. 

 

 

 

We were read Winnie-the-Pooh. My brother and I both loved that. Each of us had a teddy bear, and we argued over which one 
was Pooh. I lost, and so I called mine Bear. Our friend Daniel loved to play the role of a dandy with 
a cane and a hat. We called him the Duke of Morny – the name he had chosen, as if to dress up his small stature. He was an astonishing actor; he staged Molière’s The Miser at school. I’ll never forget that. 

 

 

 

Babar was not only part of my childhood; like a real friend, he has always been with me throughout my life – always a companion, even 
when I started drawing him myself. I started working on Babar when 
I was 13. My father had died, and my uncle, Michel de Brunhoff, editor of French Vogue, was in charge of preparing two of my father’s books for posthumous publication.

 

He asked me to do the colour for two pages of Babar and His Family and for the cover of Babar and Father Christmas. That was the start. Now I am 86 and I have done dozens of Babar books myself. It is shocking for me to realize how much older I am than my father was when he died (37). But he stays alive for me through Babar, who has had many adventures over the years. My love for fine art and my friendship with Babar came together in the book Babar’s Gallery, which was published a few years ago.

 

 

 

Babar's Celesteville Games is out now, published by Abrams, available from Foyles, Blackwells, Hughes and Hughes (Ireland).