The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)
“A children's book that breaks adults. A pilot stranded in the desert meets a boy from a tiny planet, and everything you thought you understood about love, loss, and what matters gets quietly dismantled.”
Short Summary
A pilot crash-lands in the Sahara Desert and meets a small boy who claims to come from a tiny asteroid. The Little Prince tells the pilot about his home — a planet barely bigger than a house, with three volcanoes and a single, vain rose he loves. He describes his journey through space, visiting six planets inhabited by absurd adults: a king, a vain man, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, and a geographer. On Earth, he befriends a fox who teaches him that 'what is essential is invisible to the eye.' After a year in the desert, the prince allows a snake to bite him so he can return to his rose. The pilot, now alone, is forever changed.
Detailed Summary
The narrator, a pilot, recalls how at age six he drew a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. Every adult who saw it thought it was a hat. He learned then that grown-ups never understand anything by themselves — you have to explain everything to them. He gave up drawing and became a pi...