It's the first book I ever read in French, and I only chose it in order to practice the language, because reading stories in the language I want to learn is what helped me learn English the most, as well. I definitely enjoyed this way more than I was expecting and I've caught myself thinking about the philosophy of the little prince often during the days in which I read the story.

🇫🇷: Ce classique est vraiment spécial. Le narrateur rencontre un jour le petit prince. Dans ses récits, nous suivons le petit prince lors de ses voyages sur différentes planètes, jusqu'à ce qu'il atteigne finalement la Terre. Sur sa minuscule planète, il ramone régulièrement ses volcans 🌋 (aussi bien en activité qu'éteint) et prend soin de sa fleur 🌹 L'histoire est divertissante et accompagnée de belles illustrations. Les sagesses présentes dans le livre m'ont incité à réfléchir ☺️ J'ai particulièrement trouvé intéressante la perspective unique du petit prince sur divers sujets ☺️

"Le Petit Prince" is one of the most well-known children's books out there. Full of symbolisms, precious parallels to our world and important messages of which to read a child can only profit. I get the literal impact it achieved, the positive recognition it caused within the genre of children's literature, but I just didn't like it. (And that's why this is not going to be a review in the way I'm usually writing them, but more like a rambling collection of thoughts.) I had to read this book for my French course one and a half years ago. We discussed Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's life a lot, the life of a man who lived for writing and being a pilot before finally vanishing under mysterious circumstances. And then we started reading the book, chapter for chapter. That was at the end of August. And we discussed it. Analyzed the hell out of it. And stopped reading it at the end of December. Don't forget, it only has 80 pages. 80 pages in four months? Yeah, why not. I have missed reading this as a child and would probably have enjoyed it then. But reading a book (and let's ignore the fact that I had to read it in French and my vocabulary is very close to non-existent, because while my grammatical abilities with dealing with this language have always been pretty good, I only survived eight years of learning French in school with a dictionary very close to me) and analyzing every movement, every word, every thought, every tingling in the protagonist's nose can be very, very tedious. And that's probably the most significant reason for why today's teenagers and young adults generally don't read classics respectively older books anymore, because school education only teaches how to read, analyze and take apart texts nonfictional as well as fictional (which is fundamentally a good approach) - not how to find reasons to like them. During my school days, thoughts like 'we have to get through this book because the education plan dictates it' were not uncommon, formed by teachers and us pupils alike. And this is essentially why I didn't like "Le Petit Prince", although I'm glad for everyone who was able to enjoy this book. Not all of it was bad, though. For example, the illustrations were great to look at (and let's not forget that they made the pages feel less long): This book can be recommended for children and adults alike ... but only if you read it voluntarily and can cope with tons of symbolisms thrown at you.