The Little Prince

I read this simultaneously in English and French. In France. A happy experience. Love this book.

A pilot crashes his plane in the desert, and who unexpectedly arrives to keep him company while he repairs his plane? A little prince from a faraway planet. The Little Prince tells the pilot stories of his home planet where he cares for a Rose and tries to keep down the baobab trees and watches up to forty-four sunsets in a single day.

The Little Prince tells the pilot of his visits to other planets where he meets a king who commands everything on a planet where there is nothing; a very vain man who wants to be admired; a drunkard who drinks to forget that he is ashamed of drinking; a businessman who says he owns the star and is a very serious person; a lamplighter who is following orders to light his lamp mornings and turn out his lamp after dark, but whose planet turns so fast that he must light and turn it out every minute; a geographer who is waiting for explorers to bring him information about the geography of his planet before he makes note of it; and then Earth.

It was on Earth that the Little Prince met a snake, no bigger than a king's finger, and yet more powerful, able to send anyone touched by the snake back to the land from which he came. It was on Earth that the Little Prince saw a blossoming rose garden with thousands of flowers, and realized that his Flower was not unique.

It was on Earth that the Little Prince met the fox who asked the Little Prince to tame him—“For me you're only a little boy just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me either. For you I'm only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we'll need each other. You'll be the only boy in the world for me. I'll be the only fox in the world for you...“

Now the Little Prince could look at the thousands of roses and know that his rose was special: “...my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I watered. Since she's the one I put under glass. Since she's the one I sheltered behind a screen....Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.”

“It was the fox who revealed to the Little Prince a secret: “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”