I just read in the paper that Babar is turning 75. An encounter with a Babar book at a young age really affected me.
I can still remember the illustrations of the King of the Elephants stopping to eat mushrooms that caused his death. It was bad enough that Babar's mother had been killed by hunters, but to think that a guy could die because the tasty mushrooms he just enjoyed were poisonous was chilling. These were supposedly childrens books but this sequence was so cold, so traumatizing.
To this day I blame Babar for the fact I don't like mushrooms on my pizza. Who could enjoy mushrooms after that? One bad shroom and you're a goner.
