Read Yes
Length 84
Quick Review This has become an iconic children’s story. It’s been translated into so many languages, you don’t have a reason not to read it.
Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a fantasy children’s novella for adults. Though, he penned many, this is by far his most renowned work.
The narrator, no other than Saint-Exupéry himself, begins the story by talking about his childhood dream of being an artist. The narrator happens to be an airplane pilot, who crashes in the desert with no rescue in sight. A little boy, hailing from Asteroid B-612, shows up demanding a picture of a sheep be drawn for him. After this, the little prince tells the narrator about his journeys and how he is trying to return to his home planet and his rose. I won’t ruin the beauty of it for you.
For me, this is such a nostalgic story. The first time I read it was also the first time I read a book in French. It was a struggle because this was before I had WiFi or easy access to a computer, so every word I did not know – which was a lot back then – I had to look up in a dictionary. It took me hours longer than my classmates because I was technologically far behind. Now, I can breeze through it easily in the amount of time it took me to read five pages. Though, it is by far the syntactically simplest book I have read in French at this point, every time I read it I still feel a small pang of triumph.
I would talk more about style and syntax and what a masterpiece it is, but if you don’t have time to read 84 pages, then you’re just going to have to miss out.
Memorable Quote
“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it.”
Title: Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)
Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Publisher: Harcourt, Inc.
ISBN: 9780156012195