Our picture books are remembered

In the rur­al Col­orado world in which I live there is no postal deliv­ery. The post office is twelve miles away, and is in a build­ing that hous­es a gen­er­al store as well as a liquor store. (There is a pic­ture of it in my new book Old Wolf.)

In one cor­ner of the post office there is a floor-to-ceil­ing book­case where peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty leave and take books. (The pub­lic library is 17 miles beyond.) The books–for young and old—are con­stant­ly chang­ing. A bin for pic­ture books sits on the floor, I pre­sume so the very young can look through them on their own. The last time I was there I spied a copy of The Sto­ry of Babar the Lit­tle Ele­phant, by Jean de Brunhoff.

The moment I saw it, the whole book flashed through my mind. Babar and his moth­er. The killing of his moth­er. The tears Babar sheds. How Babar runs off to the city and meets the very rich Old Lady … on and on and how, at the end, King Babar and Queen Celeste go off in a “gor­geous” yel­low bal­loon on their honeymoon.

More than sev­en­ty years ago Babar was an impor­tant part of my life. Appar­ent­ly, it still is. I find it extra­or­di­nary how vivid­ly this book remains in my mind. Indeed, as I thought about the death of Babar’s mother—and the image of the lit­tle ele­phant crying—I felt a swell of emotion.

I write, for the most part, nov­els for young peo­ple, but it nev­er ceas­es to amaze me how many pic­ture books I remem­ber. My moth­er was high­ly skilled at find­ing and bring­ing home the very best of 1940’s pic­ture books. I tru­ly remem­ber many of them. I could, but won’t list them all. Too long a list.

I assume the pic­ture book mak­ers of today have the same impact on young kids now.  What a great life-long gift they pro­vide. All hon­or to them.

But don’t neglect The Sto­ry of Babar the Lit­tle Ele­phant, pub­lished in 1933. It is wonderful.