Painter and storyteller, who revived father’s picture-book series about elephant king, said he didn’t consciously write for young people

Babar author Laurent de Brunhoff, who revived his father’s popular picture-book series about an elephant-king and presided over its rise to a global multimedia franchise, has died at the age of 98.

De Brunhoff, who was from Paris and moved to the US in the 1980s, died on Friday at his home in Key West, Florida, after being in hospice care for two weeks, according to his widow, Phyllis Rose.