The Babar Collection

They don't teach cursive anymore these days. I bought this for my daughter specifically to practice reading cursive. The cursive is printed very clearly in this collection - easy for young learners to read.

Before I ordered it, I searched all over the place—without success—to find out what the five stories in this compilation are. So now that I've received the book, I thought I would do the rest of you a favor by telling you what the stories are. They are: 1) The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant; 2) Babar's Travels; 3) Babar the King; 4) Babar at Home; and 5) Babar and Father Christmas.Another note: Though the book is a paperback, the cover seems very sturdy and high-quality to me. So I do recommend the book!

Loved reading these stories when I was little. Even though in don't have kids of my own these stories take me back to my childhood and I'm all relaxed and stressed free from life, plus my cousin and her husband have 3 kids and they'll enjoy me reading these stories to them like my late mom used to read to me.

I got the first Babar book at a yard sale, but was disappointed to find that the first 2pages were missing. My granddaughter liked it a lot, so I bought this collection. After it arrived, I understood why the first couple of pages were missing - a hunter shoots and kills baby Babar’s mother. My granddaughter (4) cried and cried, and gun violence was NOT a topic I had wanted to get into, but I did my best. Then I neatly removed the first 2 pages, and it’s a favorite with my granddaughter now.

Okay, so I got this book because I loved it as a child. But I haven't read it since, of course. Well, I read Babar to the kiddos and... I stopped after the second story. It was not good. I don't remember any of it except the pictures.It starts the book by a hunter shooting Babar's mom while Babar is riding on her back happily (which the kids were really troubled by and kept asking why)... Then the book goes right on to describe how Babar runs off in horror and then came upon a city and found civilization and became more civilized himself (wearing clothes and walking on two feet instead of all fours and driving an automobile). Then his cousins Celeste and Arthur visit and the first thing he does is to buy them clothes and try to civilize them. Then through various circumstances he decides to go back to the land of the elephants who are now considered "uncivilized" and they make him their king. But he doesn't agree until he announces that he's just become engaged to his COUSIN Celeste and will marry her and make her his queen. Then in the next story, Babar and Celeste go on their honeymoon and their means of transport crashes and they are stranded. But then the book illustrates them at a campsite where they dry their clothes on a line and then just hang out "naked" for the remainder of the story until they find civilization again. The kids were confused as to why the elephants were naked after the president was set that... Civilized elephants are clothed.I scanned the remainder of the books and it details a naughty elephant trying dynamite to a rhino's tail to try to blow it up. This starts a war between the elephants and rhinos that gets rather ugly. Then Babar and Celeste shame and tame the "heathen" elephants and civilize and colonize the land of the elephants until it looks nothing like their native country. They build cities and all of them wear clothes and attend operas and.... Yeah.I don't know if these are the messages we should be sending to kids.... But I was not happy with the book at all and decided to return it. I definitely wish I'd done my due diligence and read the book myself again before reading it to the kids. I just remember it so fondly from my childhood and assumed it was fine. Ugh.

Book came early in great condition. The illustrations are just as I remembered from childhood and I couldn't be happier with my purchase. Will be sharing these wonderful stories with my grandson soon.

I bought two copies to give to my great niece and nephew for Christmas. I was looking for a book written in cursive to give them practice reading it since we are forced to teach it ourselves because the schools no longer do so.

The Babar the Elephant stories are enchanting and timeless. Kids want to hear them over and over, and the illustrations are detailed and engaging.

My son enjoyed this book and it helped him learn to read cursive. I wish more kids books were written in cursive.

My daughter and I love this book. Her mother-in-law does too. I used to spend hours looking at the illustrations. I really hope that there are young readers out there who will appreciate it?

Great set of stories. Shows it’s age in its naive Eurocentric ideas, but taken in context it’s not that offensive. Worth noting the actually offensive black face part of the second story is not in this version, which is great.

A lovely collection of the original Babar stories. These are great favorites around my house, notwithstanding problematic colonial themes that show its age.

The product product description says it's suitable for 3-7 year olds.Well I had an upset 6 year old at bedtime tonight. The first story, Babar the baby elephant is riding round on his loving mum's back and BAM a "cruel hunter" shoots and kills his mum literally out from under him.How anyone thought this was appropriate for 3 year olds is beyond me.Someone else read the story to my kids (4 and 6) when it first arrived, I'm so sorry I bought it! I had a vaguely nice memory of a Babar book as a kid and thought it'd be nice to revisit together. All I've achieved is upsetting my kids.Also if that doesn't put you off, all the text is loopy joined up writing so it's not visually accessible to kids in this age range learning to read.Presumably some of the other stories are ok, but briefly flicking through I saw Babar and his friend get trapped by circus people and I'm ditching the book. Pity as the artwork is nice and that's hard to find these days.