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Le Petit Prince

The story unfolds just like any other children's book. The first thing that catches your eye is the drawing of number one, a hat. Oops, I'm sorry, it's a boa constricter digesting an elephant. How could I have become such an adult? 

The narrator, a middle-aged man, who flies a airplane, suddenly crashes onto the Sahara desert and is stranded there for quite some time. As he tries to fix his engine, he thinks he is hallucinating, when a young boy, dressed like a prince, shows up magically, laughing. The first thing that the young boy says is, "please draw me a sheep." The narrator, having long abandoned his career as a painter, tells the young boy that he cannot draw, yet after many protests by this strange boy, ends up drawing him several pictures of a sheep. One is too sickly, one looks like a ram, and the other is too weak. Finally, the narrator gives up and draws a carrying box and tells the boy, "your sheep is in that box."

The relationship between the narrator and the boy becomes almost a fantastical journey into the universe and all that is good and true. As they sleep through the cold desert nights and fight the scathing sun during the day, the narrator continuously listens to the young boy's stories as he tries to fix his engine. The boy, who we now know of as, the little prince, recounts to the narrator, his journey across not continents, but planets. He tells of kings who rule over nothing, a clown who seeks for admirers, a geographer who records only non-living things, a merchant who sells pills to replace the need to drink water, and many strange creatures and landscapes, including the very wise and spirited fox who teaches him the secret of life. 

"The secret is very simple"

The narrator begins to understand life differently. As it turns out, the little prince is actually from a tiny asteroid in the sky. He left his little planet, which has only three volcanoes, one rose, several baobabs in hopes of escaping from his annoying and pestering rose  in search for "better" things. Yet, what he has discovered is that sometimes, the good things cannot be easily seen. 

As the narrator grows to love the little prince, he discovers as well, the truths that have been hiding from him all of his life. A part of himself that he has long lost seems to have been recovered by the purity of the the little prince, and yet as rejoicing as it may seem, it is a bit sad, for the rest of the world, does not understand, or maybe never, the importance of such a small boy.