Cécile de Brunhoff (née Sabouraud; 16 October 1903 – 7 April 2003) was a French storyteller and the creator of the original Babar story.
[4][5][6] The Babar books began as a bedtime story de Brunhoff invented for her children, Mathieu and Laurent, when they were four and five years old, respectively.
The boys liked the story of the little elephant who left the jungle for a city resembling Paris so much that they took it to their father Jean de Brunhoff, a painter, and asked him to illustrate it.
[7] Originally, it was planned that the book's title page would describe the story as told by Jean and Cécile de Brunhoff.
Her son Laurent de Brunhoff carried on the family tradition of writing and illustrating the Babar books.