Tolog Review: The Little Prince

The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
reviewed by Alyssa Adriano

Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince is a literary fiction novel following the story of a Little Prince who lives alone on a petite planet containing only three small volcanoes and one special flower. On his journey, the Little Prince unexpectedly lands on Earth and meets a pilot stranded in the Sahara Desert. The two explorers become friends, and we are immediately pulled into a world about the Little Prince’s recent travels to different planets prior to arriving on Earth. Along the way, the Little Prince teaches the stranded pilot many life lessons which we can also relate to in our daily lives. 

Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote The Little Prince from the point of view of the stranded pilot, and consequently, we are aware only of the pilot’s thoughts. However, a majority of the novel tells us about the prince’s experiences as he converses with our narrator, the pilot. Through these conversations, we find hidden meanings and truths which we can use in our daily lives. Although de Saint-Exupery conveys many deep, hidden messages in The Little Prince, he wrote the beautiful novel in such a way that innocent, young children also can read it and imagine a little prince on his own planet, while teenagers and adults can read deeper into the text to find inspiring life lessons. 

The Little Prince is certainly more than just a petite novel with little illustrations weaved throughout the text. When you think deeply about each and every word in the novel, you will realize how thoughtful and powerful such a tiny book really is. When I first began to read this novel, I was immediately intrigued by the Little Prince’s innocence which reminded me of how innocent my younger cousins are. I began to think of the contrast between adults and children in my own life and compared that to the pilot and the Little Prince. De Saint Exupery notes that children have bigger imaginations and more wisdom than many adults do which has inspired me keep my mind open to all ideas and to always be imaginative -- no matter how old I become.