Au Pays de Babar, Les Albums de Jean de Brunhoff, Isabelle Nières-Chevrel, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017

As a university researcher accustomed to reviewing academic books I found myself in the strange position of facing a work which I, or indeed my family, could have been reading for fun. An initial reaction might be that the lively illustrations—more or less a picture on every page, if not more—the helpful tabular presentations, and the myriad of archival photos, coupled with eminently approachable jargon-free style of writing, were the price to pay for a lack of scholarly rigour. None of it. T...