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Summary: The Little Prince
Review: The Little Prince is a classic children's story that will stick with you your entire life. This allegory explores, beauty, love, fear and dreams in the simplest terms, yet takes them to the deepest chambers of our hearts and souls. Antoine d'Exupery's book is beautiful in its original French format and remains true to the tale in this English translation. Read it again and again throughout the stages of your life.
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Summary: Excellent Philosphy
Review: This book touches the heart. It is at all not for kids . It has a very deep meaning. Tame Others and then u will be tamed by others and enjoy the beauty and nearness to it. Excellent book ....
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Summary: Don't buy the new translation until...
Review: Don't buy the new translation of this classic until you have read David Kipen's review in the June 21st San Francisco Chronicle (available at the paper's website). Kipen goes into detail about the specific word choices that render the new edition charmless. If you want to enjoy this book and, more importantly, to turn on a new reader, stick with the Woods translation.
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Summary: Sowing the seeds of love
Review: What Antoine De Saint-Exupery did in such a small tome was explain what is truly important in life. This alone is a daunting task that does not lend itself to brevity well. Mr. Antoine De Saint-Exupery pulled the whole affair off brilliantly. He also has time in those few pages to give us a realistic perspective on love. Like all great children's works this book works on two levels: surface and depth. On the surface it is an adorable story about a very demanding little man with enough curiosity in his tiny body to ask the questions that none of us dare to think out loud. Deeper in there are numerous veiled references to our own insecurities, the sadly hollow modern world and even death. I can see where some people might not get the point of The Little Prince. Personally, I would rather not know such people but just observe them from afar, like the Little Prince, as they spend very sad lifetimes concerned with matters of consequence. Simply The Little Prince shows us what really matters. I have found something completely different and wonderful everytime I have picked this book up to read it again. If the story of the rose does nothing for you I am sure there are books on war,finance and geography that might interest you or you might pick up the other book about a prince by Machiavelli. The rest of us will be looking at the stars and laughing because Antoine De Saint-Exupery has truly made them special to us in a way we will only know.
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Summary: The Woods Translation is Better
Review: If I had to choose only one favorite book, it would be The Little Prince. I have read it over and over again across the years. The book touches my soul like no other. I do not recommend the new translation by Richard Howard. It does not have the same charm and impact as the original Katherine Woods translation. One of the changes I do not like is that he uses contractions (e.g., "We'd" instead of "We would"). For new readers, please read Woods' edition first. On C-SPAN's Booknotes, Howard admitted that the book is not "beloved" to him and showed no passion whatsoever for the book. Oddly, he referred to one of the profound rose passages as one of the book's "creepy" passages! (?)
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Summary: the little prince represents our world
Review: I felt that the Little Prince represents many aspects in our world. I believe this book would be a great book for teachers and parents to read. If I could require teachers and parents alike to read a book this would be it. I felt that this story helped me to see children in a different perspective. It also helped me to see the world around us differently through the eyes of a child. Please read this book. Even though the book may seem like it is not for you, please give it a try it has a lot of deep thoughts hidden within its pages.
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Summary: Be thankful this book is short
Review: I read this book (as an adult) since I heard it being so often mentioned alonside The Alchemist. The Little Prince is no where near in the same class as The Alchemist and I was sorely disappointed. This is truly a book for small children only...any adult (or child for that matter) with even a half developed brain will find this book ambigious, boring and even a little insulting...on the upside it reads quickly and the tedious pain is over quickly.
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Summary: This book has a life of its own
Review: Can't get enough of this book. When faced with the prospect of having to buy -another- copy (I always give them away), I finally bought the hard cover. The illustrations are incredible. Spend the extra money just for them. You miss so much by having to relate to the paperback, much smaller, illustrations. This is not a children's book. The work is, in fact, far too tragic for younger children, even if they don't grasp all of the imagery presented in the story. The ending is simply too difficult to try to explain to small children. But, aside from that...this book is so beautiful. It brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. Each planet may be a thinly disguised political lesson, but who cares. The prince's experiences are touching and at times heart-rending. This book is also best for reading out loud. It'll take a little time, perhaps about an hour and a half, but it's worth it. The translation just rolls right off the tongue, the images become much easier to picture, the dialogues between the prince and the other character seem easier to internalize. He may have been writing a religious/spiritual statement, it may be a social-political commentary, _The Little Prince_ may be an anti-science manifesto. Point is, it doesn't matter what the "intent" of the story was. The book is so accessible, so deftly written, the story so compelling and honest, that any reader can intepret it in a deeply personal way. Every time you read the book, a different scene will leap out at you. A different line will strike your heart. The fox, the rose, the tippler, the prince, each character is fantastically vivid. As you change in your life, the book will change too. It is a rare and treasured book, indeed. A note on the translation: There is a new translation coming out, with cleaned illustrations (which are brilliant). While more "accurate", the language in the new version is not as soft, not as texture-based. The new translation seems to lack a lot of the tenderness of the original translation; many of the greatest and most memorable phrases come across as harder and less childlike. Interesting to read, but only a pale comparison to the first job.
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Summary: International favorite
Review: Some children may enjoy this curiously poignant European tale, but I think it is more aimed at adults, with its gentle parodies of grown-up life, its metaphysical ending, and its parables against fascism (the Baobab trees.) The drawings are a delight, and the messages about human love are important. If read in English, the book can be finished at a sitting.
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Summary: The Book That Touched Me
Review: The Little Prince is a book that will change your life. It is philisophical, but not presumptuous; it is thoughtful, but not exhaustingly so. St-Ex (as we called him in my French class in Israel, where I first read the book) has established a beautiful balance. In the shapes of a small boy and a grown man who refuses to be a "grande personne," he puts forth some of the most lucid philisophical insights I have ever encountered. You must read this book, for life and for love.
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