BABARS COUSIN

Another Babar- a big one — in which Laurent de Brunhoff shows that he has inherited his father's mantle. These Babar and Celeste stories have become children's classics. Though they should theoretically come under the hammer of those who dislike personified animal stories, somehow- like Peter Rabbit- they have made their own place. Perhaps because humans are left out, and one is transported to an elephant world, where the elephants live under their own laws and customs. In this, told with the same matter-of-fact acceptance of humorous situations, and pictured with the same big, sprawly, postery pictures, we follow the Babar family to the seashore, where Cousin Arthur is bored by the younger children's adventures, and goes off on his own — by plane- in a wholly absurd and unorthodox manner. Nonsense in the Babar tradition. A bit more text than Jean de Brunhoff used.