By: Claire Li

Being stuck in an empty desert without food or water wasn’t the most pleasant experience for the narrator of this story, who is a pilot. But to the pilot’s surprise, in the emptiest desert of the world, he met the little prince. The little prince was a young boy who seemed to come from another planet, with plenty of stories to share and a mature, yet child-like mindset.

There are so many different messages conveyed in this book. One of them is that not all important things should be evaluated through numbers or appearances, but once people grow up, they start evaluating everything through numbers or appearances. For example, it is revealed that the little prince used to live on an asteroid known as B-612. The asteroid was only seen once through the telescope by a Turkish astronomer. However, when the astronaut presenting the findings, he was in a Turkish costume, so nobody believed him. But, when the astronaut changed into a suit, everyone believed his report. The pilot also shared that grown-ups could not imagine if a child described a beautiful house to them, but if the child told them that they saw a house worth a million dollars, the grown-up would say ‘What a beautiful house!’ These are representations of how grown-ups only understand when something is described through numbers or appearances.

Another message is that once a person becomes friends with another person, they “tame” each other. And once they are tamed, the other person becomes someone special, not just a random stranger in the world. An example is when the little prince befriends a beautiful but egotistical rose. The rose always bragged about its beauty, and the little prince took care of the rose every day. When the little prince left his planet, he saw on Earth that there were thousands of roses just like his rose, but the rose the little prince tamed was the rose he took care of and talked to everyday. This made the little prince’s rose different from all the other roses. The time the little prince put into the rose made the rose special to him.

The author has the ability to make this story very sad even though there is not much information to be sad about. For instance, every conversation the prince had with the rose was about her appearance, and the rose acted extremely egotistical. However, by the time that the little prince was leaving, the rose was kind to the prince for the first time. The rose assured the prince that she was going to be fine, that she had three thorns to protect herself, and that the rose needed to deal with the caterpillars by herself if she wanted to know the butterflies. It was also talking about finding happiness in the little things, like a rose. This scene was one of the saddest scenes in the book, conveyed by the author’s powerful way with words.
This novel has over 200 million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 571 languages and dialects. The story was written by Antoine De Saint-Exupery in 1943 during World War 2. Soon after publishing this story, the author got into a plane crash, similar to the pilot in the desert.

This book should be rated a 9 out of 10; it is a timeless novel for all ages. It is extremely imaginative, as it tells meaningful messages through stories told by the little prince and has very clever metaphors sneaked into the story. Reading the Little Prince is like seeing the world through how a child thinks. It is a wonderful new perspective to life and is a must-read for both children and adults.