Book Review: The little Prince

Clockwise (Start from the trees): Baobab trees, the drinker/drunkard, the conceited man, the lamplighter, the businessman, the king, the geographer/old gentleman and in the middle is the little prince.

Hello world! So here I am again to introduce (and if possible convince you to read this book) "The Little Prince" written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

I feel in love with this book at the first chapter of the story at exactly this sentence:
"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children always and forever to be giving explainations."


At the very beginning of this novel (in my understanding) the writer wrote how different children and adults (or so they call themselves) see the world. How to the child, his drawing looks that of a boa constrictor who swallowed an elephant and how adults see it as a hat. How different children and adults are! Almost as if we are seperated in different worlds yet we step on the same sand and breathe the same air do we not?
Then the writer further stated that adults love numbers and figures. They lose sight of things that are important. When getting to know someone they ask how much those the person earn for a living or how many siblings they have or how old is he. They do not ask what does the person like to do or what are his favourite games.
I really love the novel, so much that it's hard to have a favourite chapter. One specific chapter on baobabs is very important to me. It is about how we treat our planet. The writer stresses the importance of this by saying how he took time and effort to draw the picture of the baobab tree. In order to teach children of how important it is for us to care for our planet. Where else would we live without it???
Oh there is so much that we can learn from this novel. Especially to those kids that are becoming adults and to those adults who forgot they were once kids. I'll stress one last important part in the novel. On his journey, the prince met many weird adults (from the king to the businessman to the drunkard to the lamplighter to the geographer and the conceited man) and perhaps the most important appearance in the novel was not that of a human but a fox. An animal which the prince tame and an animal who taught the prince the importance of a bond.

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'My life is very monotonous. I run after the chickens and men run after me. All the chickens are the same; all the men are the same. Consequently, I get a little bored. But if you tame me, my days will be as if filled with sunlight. I shall know the sound of a footstep different from all the rest. Other steps make me run to earth. Yours will call me out of my foxhole, like music. And besides, look over there! You see the fields of corn? Well, I don't eat bread. Corn is of no use to me. Corn fields remind me of nothing. Which is sad. On the other hand, your hair is the colour of gold. So think how wonderful it will be when you have tamed me. The corn, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I shall come to love the sound of the wind in the field of corn...'
...
'And now you are going to cry!' said the little prince.
'I know,' said the fox.
'So you have gained nothing at all!'
'Yes, I have gained something,' said the fox, 'because of the colour of the corn.'

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'Goodbye,' said the fox. 'Now here is my secret, very simply: you can only see things clearly with your heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.'
....
'It is the time you have wasted on your rose that makes your rose so important.'
...
'People have forgotten this truth,' said the fox. 'But you must not forget. You become responsible, for ever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.'

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It will be really tiring to explain everything in my post and you'll probably not understand half of what I'm saying. I strongly recommend this book to everyone! Children and yes! to you adults out there who think you are mature. I always hear adults say how innocent children are and how they do not know what the real world is like and how immature children can be but seriously who are you to decide what IS the real world? Isn't the way we all view the world different from the other? A person in a rich family will see the world differently from an orphan in the streets. A farmer live life differently from a lawyer. No? So what is real and what isn't? Is your world real or mine?
I really disagree when adults say that children do not understand the world. Sure they lack experience and thus some understanding but what adults often don't realise is how children KNOW what is important in life while adults (in their haste to meet everyday needs and achievement) forget what is most important.

After reading this book I'm looking forward to read another one of his creation "Wind, Sand and Stars". So I hope you all would pick up this book and read it. Won't take you even half a day to read it. You'll gain something in EVERYTHING that you read. Hope you'll enjoy this book as much as I did. :)

~owari