Remember that movie? The man who likes to draw ‘outside of the box’ ends up crashing in the desert and meets a little boy prince from a tiny planet who is in love with a selfish prissy rose?? What metaphors am I missing? It’s all got to mean something. Or is it just one long acid trip?
Go read the book by Antoine du Saint-Exupery. It’s beautiful, moving, and it’ll make a whole lot more sense. 
Would it be a good book to read with my husband or is it too… tender? The last two we’ve read together have been rather mellow. It’s his turn to pick one, but I can at least make suggestions.
I remember my mother reading that book to me when I was little. But what I remember most were the illustrations. My imagination really took off after seeing those strange images.
Oooohhhh OK, so it’s something I can read with my children someday. From the movie I would have never thought it was a children’s book. I always thought it had a political or religious agenda, to abstract for children. Now I can certainly see it.
Oh great and merciful Og, do not subject your children to The Little Prince. It will ruin a beautiful, eerie amazing story by wooshing them. My mom tried to read me The Little Prince. I hated it. My high school French teacher made us read Le Petit Prince. I hated it even more. The a few years ago, when I was in the most depressed funk of my life, cleaning out boxes never opened from a move, I found my old hated copy.
And it was wonderful.
It is most certainly, cartoonish drawings and simple words aside, NOT a children’s book.
It’s not a children’s book the way *Jonathan Livingston Seagull * is not a children’s book.
IMHO, YMMV, void where prohibited, end purchaser pays all fees and taxes…
Huh–I really liked it when I was a kid. I’ve been scared to read it again, afraid it’d turn out to be new-age pabulum; but as a child, and later as a teenager, I adored it. In college our class took an overnight field-trip to the Oregon high desert, and around the campfire I read the book to a bunch of my classmates; it’s one of my favorite college memories :). I highly recommend reading it aloud.
Daniel
There’s a movie?
Seriously, though, read the book if you’re old enough. Memorize it if you can - you won’t regret it.
Of course, you’ll be forced to read it in English or in French, which is a pity. You haven’t really read Antoine du Saint-Exupery unless you’ve read him in the original Hebrew.
The Little Prince was the first gift my husband ever gave me when we were dating. He inscribed it with the quote, “I know a flower… I think she must have tamed me.” You’ll get the reference when you read the book. It is, needless to say, one of our all-time favorite books.
Am I being whooshed here? Saint-Exupery was a French patriot and aviator. (And I don’t believe they’ve found his plane, dammit, he just disappeared one day flying off into the sky!) I always thought he wrote Le Petit Prince in French. It’s just within the realm of possibility he could have written it in Hebrew, I guess… so I can’t tell! :eek:
I’m pretty sure there are several (I know there’s one where Gene Wilder plays the fox). I saw about half a dozen different stage versions as a kid.
I think that statement is somewhat equivalent to two things said in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. First: “There is an old Vulcan saying, ‘Only Nixon could go to China.’” Second: “One cannot really understand Shakespeare unless you read him in the original Klingon.”
Why, yes. I am a total geek.
There’s four movies, according to IMDB. This 1974 one, starring Gene Wilder and Bob Fosse. One with no information whatsoever except a year on 1979 and writing credit for a Susan Shadborne. Looks like an animated special. A 1990 German TV special and a 2001 short in Hebrew. The only one I’ve seen is the 1974 Wilder/Fosse one.
So, huh. There *is * a Hebrew one. Barring space/time anomolies, I don’t think it was “the original” though. 
That’s what I was thinking, at first, when I read it. Then, well, consider - Hebrew is used all over the globe and it’s hard to guess who actually may use it in their private writings by name, or nationality. Now I just don’t know, and it’s driving me sane!
I wouldn’t say it is not a children’s book, I read it when I was a kid and enjoyed it. But as one gets older, certain parts and certain meanings become more clear(or change meaning), and now I like the story not only for the reasons I did as a kid, but for the new meanings that I found later.
It’s been a few years since I’ve read the book, I’ll probably reread it again when I go back home for Christmas. It always makes me cry.
It’s actually been translated into a lot of languages. See here for images of the covers of over 200 versions from all over the world. The one from Tajikistan (#184) is kinda cool, the Iranian one (#88) is really pretty, and the Korean one (#56) is very intriguing!
Actually, I believe they did find his plane a year or two ago off the coast of France.
Not really whooshed, just, um, geeked. As Saltire said, it’s a STVI reference.
The Little Prince is HUGELY popular here in Israel, so much so it’s almost a cliche. Hikers read it on desert mountaintops. Teenage girls copy pages into their notebooks. Soldiers read passages out loud at funerals. It’s such a touchstone of Israeli culture that I’m pretty sure there are many kids around here who have no idea it was written by a Frenchman.
No they didn’t. I don’t care what you say. He just flew off into the sky and never came back down. <nodnodnodnodnodnodnod> 
Alessan, thanks for clearing that up. It IS what I thought at first, but then I started thinking about it…
I seem to recall reading about his ID bracelet turning up, but I don’t really remember hearing about the plane. But when I asked Jeeves about the bracelet, I found this.