Babar's Book of Color

Babar

by Laurent de Brunhoff

Pom, Flora, Alexander, and Isabelle go to Babar's art studio and learn about mixing and using colors, in a fun introduction to exploring the world of color.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, France, Fiction, Art

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Laurent de Brunhoff est un auteur et illustrateur français.

Laurent De Brunhoff has kept the spirit of Babar and his family alive for over 50 years. Babar was created by Laurent's mother as a bedtime story, and was first illustrated by Laurent's father, Jean de Brunhoff.

After his father's death, Laurent continued to create over 30 Babar stories.

Laurent de Brunhoff lived in Connecticut with his wife, writer Phyllis Rose.

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revisiting old favourites from my shelves whilst the libraries are closed.

If I had come to this Babar book as an adult reading without children it would have been a 4 star, but this was so enjoyed by my children and others when they were small it’s definitely a 5 star.

The elephant children visit their artist father in his studio and he teaches them about colour and how you mix primary colours to get the other colours. The story is all about having fun, learning and creating art. A fun and inspiring read!

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the Babar, the elephant, books are merely to entertain. Other’s help to bring interesting aspects of family and the world to the child. This is one of the latter.

Here the emphasis is not on King Babar but on Babar the artist. While Babar is in his studio, he is visited by the young elephants: Pom, Flora, Alexander, and Isabelle. Starting with primary colors, Babar has each of them choose a color and find a subject that is characteristic with that color. Once each child has done that, we move on to the “colors” white and black and then to colors that are combinations of two or more primary colors. All of this is accompanied by vibrant drawings that children can relate to.

My almost 4 year old had some difficulty dealing with the abstract concept of color combinations but it was a fine introduction to actually doing it. When we read it a second time, I was delighted that she remembered the combinations of primary colors. And, when we were using paints and brushes, she was now interested in doing her own combinations.

[J. Boo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Babar allows the kids and Cousin Alexander into his art studio, lets them use primary colors, and then mixes paints with them, showing how red + white = pink, blue + red = purple, etc. No real conflict here at all, just a bunch of anthropomorphic elephants having a good time. A time shared by the reader; it was all very pleasant. This targeted DD2 (age 3), but everyone else, up through nine-year old DS1, participated.

Unexpected, but I'll take it.

[Eryn Earsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is filled with the colors of the rainbow, each color is depicted in a picture, with the main character Babar teaching his children the colors of the rainbow. This book is great for beginning readers, it has minimal sentences and lots of color to draw the reader in. Teachers, teaching pre-k and/or kindergarten could use this in the classroom as a beginning book to sound out each word. I would also recommend this book to parents to help their children get excited about reading, since books about Babar are a series and each one has its own narrative. The author knows their audience and makes reading fun, especially with each of Babar's children pointing out their favorite colors and why. This book is a childhood favorite of mine because it is a fun read and most importantly helped me like to read as a child because it was so much fun.

[Rose Rosetree · Rating 5 out of 5]

This delightful book provides an art lesson into how to mix primary colors to get additional colors. The balloon part of the lesson is ingenious.

Then further lessons show how to mix different colors of paint in order to make secondary colors, like green.

Lessons follow in adding white, then black. Plus, readers learn the secret of making a really good brown.

What a delightful book.

BY NOW I'M APPRECIATING AN UNDERLYING SENSE OF PEACEFULNESS, TOO

Just sweet enough, this Babar series.

The style reminds me of a Frenchman who's having a terrific day, yet when a friend asks him, "How ya doin'?"

That Frenchman friend answers, "Not bad."

[Kathy Nealen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book to teach color to fans of Babar and his family. It includes the concept of color mixing to obtain secondary and tertiary colors.

[Asho · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a great job of introducing the primary colors and explaining how they can be mixed with each other and with black and white to make other colors. I think this provides an appealing color lesson even for those not already familiar with Babar. My baby enjoyed looking at the colors, too because the pictures are very simple and bold.

ETA August 2016: Four years later I checked this one out of the library again because my son needed to read some books about colors for his summer reading challenge. I still think this is cute, although of the three color books my son checked out this was his least-requested one. L got to hear this for the first time, too, and seemed interested but not thrilled.

[Maria Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought Babar’s Book of Color was a decent concept book on color. I am not very familiar with the character of Babar so I did not have background knowledge to make me emotionally attached to the characters in the book. What I really liked about the book was that the pages were giant white empty pages which allowed for the colors to really pop off the pages. The book is also very large which makes it great for reading aloud and showing the students the illustrations. The story itself was kind of standard and really did not have anything that “wowed” me. I think that I would look for more creative concept books on color for my classroom.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Babar helps children learn colors.

[SARAH · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice book of colors that starts with an exploration of the primary colors, black, and white. Then it explores mixing colors: the primaries and colors with white.

[Tycho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic. The world of Babar has fond memories for me. I was glad to see that my friends have this one for their kid. It is simple, but cute and memorable.

[Emily Leeds · Rating 5 out of 5]

It teaches about the primary colors and how to mix paint to make different colors.

[Siskiyou-Suzy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stupid, poorly written, ugly Babar sucks.