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There are books you read once as a child and then carry around for the rest of your life without ever opening again. "The Little Prince" (originally "Le Petit Prince") is often one of them. People remember the drawings, the small boy, perhaps a rose. What they tend to forget is how strange, funny, and quietly sad the book is, and how much of it is really addressed to adults.
This is an introduction for new readers and for anyone who has not picked it up since childhood. I will stay with the opening chapters and leave the rest of the journey for you.
The author and the book
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born on 29 June 1900 in Lyon, France. He was a writer and also a working aviator: he flew airmail routes as a commercial pilot and later served in the French Air Force during the Second World War. On 31 July 1944 he took off from an airbase on Corsica on a reconnaissance mission and never returned. The cause of his death remains unknown.
He wrote "The Little Prince" in 1942, while living in the United States, and illustrated it himself. It was first published in April 1943 by his American publisher, Reynal & Hitchcock, in both English and French. It only reached readers in France after the war. By November 2024 it had been translated into 600 languages and dialects.
Knowing this background changes how the book reads. It is a story about a pilot alone in a desert, written by a pilot, in wartime, far from home.
Where the story begins
The narrator starts with a memory. When he was six, he made a drawing of a boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant. He proudly showed it to the grown-ups, and every one of them saw a hat. They advised him to put away his drawings and concentrate on more sensible subjects. So he gave up on art, grew up, and became a pilot.
One day his plane breaks down in the Sahara, far from any inhabited place, with only a little drinking water. While he is struggling alone to repair the engine, a small boy appears out of nowhere and asks him, very seriously, to draw a sheep.
This is the little prince. Over the following days, in fragments, the narrator learns where the boy has come from: a tiny planet, barely larger than a house, with three volcanoes, baobab sprouts that must be pulled up before they take over, and a single rose that the prince cares for. Why he left that planet, and what he has seen along the way, the book reveals slowly. I will leave that to you.
What makes it worth reading
The first thing that stands out is how the book looks at grown-ups. They are not villains. They are simply a little ridiculous, busy with serious matters and unable to see what is right in front of them, like an elephant inside a snake. The narrator and the prince observe them with patient puzzlement, and adult readers may find it uncomfortably easy to recognize themselves.
The second is the space the book leaves. The chapters are short, the language is simple, and Saint-Exupéry's own drawings sit beside the text as part of the story rather than decoration. Much is left unsaid, which is why different readers, and the same reader at different ages, come away with completely different favorite moments.
The third is tone. The book is gentle and often funny, but there is a thread of loneliness running through it from the first page: a man stranded in the sand, a boy far from his home. It manages to be light and serious at the same time, which is much harder than it looks.
A tip: read it slowly, and look at the pictures as carefully as the words. If you are reading a translation, it is worth knowing that there are many, and they differ a good deal in tone. If one version feels flat, try another.
Who should read it
"The Little Prince" suits readers who want something short that stays with them for a long time; anyone who read it as a child and remembers only the outline; and people looking for a book to give to someone they care about. It can be read in an afternoon, and it rewards rereading at every age.
Before you begin, look again at that first drawing. What do you see: a hat, or something else? The rest of the book is, in a way, an answer to that question.
Sources
- Wikipedia, "Antoine de Saint-Exupéry" (birth date and place, career as an aviator, final reconnaissance mission from Corsica on 31 July 1944, unknown cause of death) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint-Exup%C3%A9ry
- Wikipedia, "The Little Prince" (first publication date and publisher, where and when it was written, author's own illustrations, number of translations (600 languages and dialects by November 2024), opening plot, genre) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Prince
- Wikipedia (Japanese), "星の王子さま" (Japanese translation history) https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%9F%E3%81%AE%E7%8E%8B%E5%AD%90%E3%81%95%E3%81%BE