The Children's Book that Makes Everyone Cry

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Quick, what’s this a picture of? Most  of you already know the correct answer, having seen the title of this video. But  if you’re like I was just a week ago and you’re unfamiliar with The Little Prince by  Antoine De Saint-Exupéry, you might think this is a hat. It’s not. It’s actually a  boa constrictor that’s eaten an elephant.

[00:00:18]In the context of The Little Prince, this picture  was drawn by the story’s narrator, and it was the first drawing he ever drew. He understandably  labeled it Number One. When the adults around him all thought it to be a hat, he drew drawing Number  Two, diagraming what the picture truly portrayed.

[00:00:33]After this, the narrator says, “The grown-ups  advised me to put away my drawings of boa constrictors, outside or inside, and  apply myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That  is why I abandoned, at the age of six, a magnificent career as an artist. I had been  discouraged by the failure of my drawing Number One and of my drawing Number Two. Grown-ups  never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to  provide explanations over and over again” (2).

[00:01:04]And that, ultimately, is what The  Little Prince is all about—the differences between childhood and adulthood.

[00:01:10]With most of my videos on children’s  literature, I’m taking a look at a book I read when I was a child and analyzing it from  the perspective of my now adult self. However, when it comes to The Little Prince,  I never read this book as a child.

[00:01:23]I only have my now-adult perspective to  comment on. As such, if I titled this video “Revisiting The Little Prince as an  Adult,” well, that’s kind of a misnomer.

[00:01:32]Even so, I think I can provide some insightful  commentary and analysis on this amazing work of fiction, even having only read it for the  first time very recently. In the comments of my video on Where the Wild Things Are,  a lot of you said The Little Prince was, in fact, the greatest children’s book of  all time, and I can absolutely see why.

[00:01:50]This book is a lot more advanced than those  we’ve looked at so far in this series, and a lot longer, too. So, rather than doing a  full read-through or summary as I normally would, I’m going to do both summary and analysis  throughout. For the sake of economy, I’ll be brushing past certain plot points,  and I apologize that I can’t cover it all, but I still believe I’ll be  getting my points across.

[00:02:11]My thesis, ultimately, is that The Little  Prince is a book about connection, and how a person’s perspective on connection changes  with age. With that, let’s just jump right in.

[00:02:21]So, first, I want to go back to this quote from  our narrator about putting away his drawings and his aspirations of becoming an artist. Even as a  child, our narrator was stifled by the concerns of adulthood, those being, in this quote, academics.  I don’t think the book is taking an anti-academic stance, but we’ll talk a little more about  that later. What the quote really shows is the difference in priorities between children  and adults. All our narrator wanted to do was draw and become an artist, but the adults in  his life didn’t see that as important or useful.

[00:02:52]We’ll see many times over the differences  in priorities between children and adults.

[00:02:57]But, with his dreams of being an artist shot  down, our narrator instead became a pilot. The inciting incident is his crash land in a barren  desert in Africa. He needs to repair his plane or else he’ll die. Much to his surprise, a little  boy comes upon him in the desert. The little boy understands the drawing of the boa constrictor  as it was intended, and asks the narrator to draw him a sheep. After a couple of attempts that  don’t satisfy the boy, the narrator draws a crate and says the sheep is inside. This satisfies  the boy, who is, of course, the titular prince.

[00:03:29]It’s soon revealed that the little prince  comes from outer space, and lives on a planet—an asteroid really—that’s hardly bigger  than he is. As such, the little prince can watch sunsets many times a day just by walking a  few steps forward, waiting, and repeating.

[00:03:43]After the narrator gives us information about the  little prince’s planet, Asteroid B-612, he says: “Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them  about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: ‘What  does his voice sound like?’ ‘What games does he like best?’ ‘Does he collect butterflies?’ They  ask: ‘How old is he?’ ‘How many brothers does he have?’ ‘How much money does his father  make?’ Only then do they think they know him. If you tell grown-ups, ‘I saw a beautiful  red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof…,” they won’t be able to  imagine such a house. You have to tell them, ‘I saw a house worth a hundred thousand francs.’  Then they exclaim, ‘What a pretty house!’” (10).

[00:04:23]That idea of “what really matters” is going  to pop up again and again, as is this idea of adults being obsessed with numbers. Indeed, The  Little Prince is largely a condemnation of excess and overconsumption. The hypothetical with the  house sums it up well. A child has no idea how much a house really costs, but that’s not how  they measure its worth in the first place. And when it comes to people, adults are more concerned  with logistics. As an adult now, I think about the ways in which we engage in small talk, especially  when meeting someone new. The questions are often, ‘How old are you?’ ‘What do you do?’ ‘Where  are you from?’ It reminds me of this tweet: “When you become a grownup, people stop  asking you what your favorite dinosaur is. They don’t even care.” This is just one  major way our priorities shift as we age, and as a result, our connections  and attachments change, too.

[00:05:12]And on that same line of thinking, the  narrator gets a little metatextual and says: “But, of course, those of us who understand  life couldn’t care less about numbers! I should have liked to begin this story like  a fairy tale. I should have liked to say: ‘Once upon a time there was a little prince who  lived on a planet hardly any bigger than he was, and who needed a friend…’ For those who understand  life, that would sound much truer” (12).

[00:05:36]I’m gonna go on a bit of a tangent here, but  it’s an interesting move for the author to take this turn. I’ve talked about this before  in other videos, but it’s always risky when a narrator draws attention to the fact that they’re  telling a story. It’s kind of the most important thing when it comes to storytelling—you don’t  want to take the audience out of the story.

[00:05:54]And it is interesting that the narrator didn’t  start the story in the most interesting place, as many writers, such as me, would advise.  But it works here because it’s operating on the thematic level. The narrator shows  his own adulthood by acknowledging how he started the story. What’s more, the way he  did start the story—with his own background—was also thematically relevant and necessary,  just as I think I’ve already demonstrated.

[00:06:18]The very text of this quote demonstrates its  own thematic relevance by acknowledging that the little prince needed a friend, tying  us back to connection, and also by saying, “For those of us who understand life, that  would sound much truer.” In the narrator’s eyes, to understand life is to have one’s priorities  more like those of a child—to be less concerned with numbers and more concerned with life  itself, with connection, with attachment.

[00:06:44]And before moving on, I’ll note there’s  another metatextual element to this book, that being the drawings. The narrator says he is  drawing the illustrations as the little prince tells his tale. At one point in the story, the  little prince actually sees all the drawings for himself and comments on them. This is a unique  approach, one that I’m not sure I’ve seen in other illustrated children’s classics. In a  way, it actually lends more credence to the believability of the narrative,  and that might seem counterintuitive, but with the narrative presented to us as an  account of the narrator’s own experiences, we come to understand that the drawings, too,  are not objective, but just another part of our storyteller’s subjective experience. It’s  very interesting, and I’m really only scratching the surface here. You could create an entirely  separate video about this book’s meta elements.

[00:07:32]But let’s move on. As the pilot continues  working, trying to repair his plane, the little prince starts considering a  thing or two. He asks if sheep eat flowers, particularly flowers with thorns. The narrator  says yes, so the little prince asks what good the thorns are. The narrator makes up an answer,  annoyed with the little prince and wanting to get back to work. He says, “‘I’m busy here with  something serious!’” The little prince replies: “‘You confuse everything… You’ve got it all  mixed up! […] I know a planet inhabited by a red-faced gentleman. He’s never smelled a flower.  He’s never looked at a star. He’s never loved anyone. He’s never done anything except add up  numbers. And all day long he says over and over, just like you, “I’m a serious man! I’m a serious  man!” And that puffs him up with pride” (20).

[00:08:17]This bit just further reemphasizes  what I’ve already been getting at, and the point isn’t going to stop here. The  little prince in this moment becomes offended by the idea of seriousness, and it really does  go to show that the things we take seriously as adults are so far from the things we once took  seriously as children. Granted, for the pilot, repairing his plane is life or death, and you  can justifiably argue how serious that is. But I think what Saint-Exupéry is getting at here  is the idea of surviving vs. living. What is life without smelling flowers, looking at  the stars, and loving someone? And this, too, we will talk about more later, as  well as the quote unquote “serious man.”

[00:08:56]The little prince goes on in his upset state: “‘Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one  that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out  in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he’s doing—that  isn’t important? […] If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among  all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he  looks at the stars. He tells himself, “My flower’s up there somewhere…” But if the  sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out.  And that isn’t important?’” (21).

[00:09:30]Side note, but this entire section of the book,  Chapter 7, was probably my favorite. That might sound weird to some of you who have read it  but it’s just so real for so many reasons.

[00:09:40]But anyway, refocusing in, what the little  prince hasn’t yet revealed is that he left a flower back on his asteroid. The little  prince didn’t know how the seed got to his planet, but he took care of the flower  nonetheless. The flower was talkative, a bit puffed up and full of itself, but she  and the little prince developed a kinship.

[00:09:59]What I love about this quote is how it  demonstrates that our connection with others affects our non-human attachments, and once again,  we’ll be seeing more of that as we go through the book. In this case, the little prince says  that if anything were to happen to his flower, it would be as if all the stars went out.  The stars, which are of great importance to the prince, would mean nothing if his  flower were dead. It’s clear to see why; the prince says just as much. The stars have  meaning to him because, when he looks at them, he knows the flower he loves is out there among them.  If she weren’t out there anymore, no more meaning.

[00:10:32]The little prince soon confesses that he left  his world because he realized the flower had been telling him lies. When he does leave, the flower  doesn’t say anything to him. She just coughs.

[00:10:42]Before the prince makes it to  earth, he passes six other planets, and I want to talk about each of these and  their inhabitants. My argument is that each of the men on these planets symbolizes  a major concern for adults as opposed to children. One thing to note is what these  six men have in common—they are all alone on their planets. They have no connections.  So, how do they cope with that loneliness?

[00:11:06]On the first planet, the little prince finds a  king. He represents an adult’s lust for power.

[00:11:12]The king claims he reigns over everything in  the universe, but he is desperate to have an actual subject to command, and he deeply wants  the little prince to stay and be his underling.

[00:11:23]Worth reading this quote in particular for  how unfortunately relevant it still is today: “He didn’t realize that for kings, the world is  extremely simplified: All men are subjects” (28).

[00:11:34]On the second planet, the little prince  finds someone whom he describes as “a very vain man.” He represents vanity and  a need for admiration. Like the king, he begs the little prince for validation. He  longs to be admired and acknowledged. He wants to be known as “the handsomest,  the best-dressed, the richest, and the most intelligent man on the planet,”  despite being the only man on his planet (34).

[00:11:58]On the third planet, the little prince finds  a drunkard. When the prince asks why the drunkard is drinking, the drunkard presents a  cycle. He drinks to forget that he’s ashamed, but he’s only ashamed because he’s drinking. So,  it’s like he’s saying he’s drinking to forget the fact that he’s drinking. We could say the  drunkard represents addiction, and I think that would be fair, but I think, on a deeper level,  he represents regret, guilt, and most of all, shame. He literally says he is ashamed. In his  words, that is the root cause of his woes (35).

[00:12:28]On the fourth planet, the little prince finds  the businessman who’s red in the face, the one he alluded to earlier. The businessman does  nothing but count the stars because he believes he owns them. In his mind, no one else came up  with the idea to own them before, so, having come up with the idea first, he owns them. I think he  clearly represents greed and, as mentioned up top, he’s part of the book’s condemnation of  excess. He thinks he owns the stars, as many as five hundred and one million, but what does  he really own? The stars aren’t a tangible asset, but even if they were, what good would it do him  deep down inside to own all of them? It really is indicative of the billionaire mindset in the  modern day. The only goal is the accumulation of a bigger number. There is no amount of  wealth with which they will be satisfied, and that wealth will never make up for their  lack of humanity and genuine human connection.

[00:13:19]When the businessman is explaining his  assets to the little prince, he says, “‘No, those little golden things  that make lazy people daydream. Now, I’m a serious person. I have no time for  daydreaming’” (38). Interesting phrasing, no? The stars mean nothing to the businessman. In  his mind, they only mean something to the lazy, as he calls them. Is this not representative of  how a person’s mindset shifts when they get older?

[00:13:42]On the fifth planet, the little  prince finds a lamplighter who is constantly lighting and extinguishing the lamp.

[00:13:48]The prince says something interesting  to himself upon first encountering him: “It’s quite possible that this man is absurd. But  he’s less absurd than the king, the very vain man, the businessman, and the drunkard. At least his  work has some meaning. When he lights his lamp, it’s as if he’s bringing one more star to life, or  one more flower. When he puts out his lamp, that sends the flower or the star to sleep. Which is a  fine occupation. And therefore truly useful” (40).

[00:14:13]So, on the one hand, the lamplighter might  represent man’s desire for purpose. But as the prince and the lamplighter talk, the  prince discovers that the lamplighter’s task is basically Sisyphean. He was given  orders to light and extinguish the lamp with the planet’s rotation. But as the rotation  of the planet has only increased over time, he’s now stuck in this loop where it’s day  then night then day within mere seconds.

[00:14:35]And since his orders haven’t changed, he just has  to keep working when all he wants to do is sleep.

[00:14:40]As such, the lamplighter seemingly represents  a lot of different things at once. There is a reading for purpose, but there’s also a  reading for the staunchness of tradition like in “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson,  or as a cog in capitalist the machine.

[00:14:55]On the sixth and last planet before earth,  the little prince finds a geographer.

[00:15:00]This one is sort of the hardest  to pin down metaphorically, but I think this quote tells us everything.  The geographer tells the little prince: “‘I’m not an explorer. There’s  not one explorer on my planet.

[00:15:11]A geographer doesn’t go out to describe  cities, rivers, mountains, seas, oceans, and deserts. A geographer is too important to go  wandering about. He never leaves his study. But he receives the explorers there. He questions them,  and he writes down what they remember’” (45).

[00:15:26]It would seem to me the geographer represents  an obsession with study and scholasticism, and this hearkens back to the beginning of  the book when the adults in the narrator’s life tell him to focus on his studies  instead of his drawings. But like I said, I don’t think Saint-Exupéry is outright condemning  studying or learning, I think he’s just pointing out the things we often give up when we do turn  our attention in that direction. Learning is good, but our learning should work in tandem with our  imagination, with our desire for exploration.

[00:15:54]We can certainly be a geographer, but  we should also be an explorer. And the geographer here really has no excuse. His  planet is small and it’s inhabited by no one else. He can’t keep waiting for an explorer.  He has to be the explorer and the geographer.

[00:16:09]I brought this quote up in the J.R.R.  Tolkien video, but it’s one of my favorites, and it’s certainly applicable here. As  Mary Oliver said in A Poetry Handbook: “The poet must not only write the poem  but must scrutinize the world intensely, or anyway that part of the world he or she  has taken for subject. If the poem is thin, it is likely so not because the poet does not  know enough words, but because he or she has not stood long enough among the flowers – has not  seen them in any fresh, exciting, and valid way.”

[00:16:39]In each of these interactions, the  little prince says something to the effect of “grown-ups are certainly very strange.”

[00:16:46]To recap, each of these adults represent  the ways adults cope with loneliness, or, in some cases, create their  loneliness. Adults might be starving themselves of connection because  they desire power, admiration, wealth, or purpose. Or they might be sealing  themselves off because they feel shame, a sense of tradition or obligation, or maybe  a sense that certain things are beneath them.

[00:17:08]From there, the geographer advises  the little prince to visit earth, and so he does. One of his first major  encounters is with a rose garden. The flower on the little prince’s home planet  was also a rose, but among the lies she told him was that she was the only one of her kind.  The prince responds to the rose garden thusly: “And then he said to himself, I thought  I was rich because I had just one flower, and all I own is an ordinary rose. […] And  he lay down in the grass and wept” (56).

[00:17:36]So, this is yet another condemnation  of excess. The more things that exist, the less special each of those individual  things becomes. The stars mean nothing to the businessman when he believes he owns all  of them. But that isn’t the complete picture.

[00:17:49]The little prince will go on to change his  framing, but we’ll get there when we get there.

[00:17:54]Shortly after this encounter with the roses, the little prince meets a fox who wants  to be tamed. As he says to the prince: “‘The only things you learn are the  things you tame […] People haven’t time to learn anything. They buy things  ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends,  people no longer have friends” (60).

[00:18:13]So, once again, an obvious indictment of  consumption vs. connection. People would rather make purchases than make friends. And  that’s not necessarily an indictment of people, but an indictment of the world that very greedy  people have constructed around us. We are encouraged to be lonely so that the richest  among us can sell the cure for loneliness.

[00:18:32]Making friends is hard, but  comfort shopping is easy.

[00:18:36]The little prince does tame the fox, and  the fox tames the little prince in-turn.

[00:18:41]Both invest the patience required to build a  relationship. Later, with newfound perspective, the prince comes back to the rose garden  and talks to all the roses. He says: “‘You’re lovely, but you’re empty […] One couldn’t  die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose,  all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she’s the one I’ve watered.  Since she’s the one I put under glass. Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since  she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three for butterflies). Since  she’s the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she  said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose” (63).

[00:19:24]I think the message is quite clear here. We  can try to have friendships and relationships with hundreds of people, but how meaningful  will each of those relationships be? There are billions of people on the planet,  and while every single one of them is beautiful and special, on the personal  level, the ones we care about the most, the ones who are special to us, are the  ones in whom we invest our time and care.

[00:19:46]It would be like my dad looking at a room  full of women; he could acknowledge their specialness and their humanity, but none  would be as important to him as my mom.

[00:19:55]He wouldn’t give his time to them or die for  them in the same way he would my mother. Or consider you and your closest friends. You  could go to a party with a bunch of randos and it would probably be great, but wouldn’t  you rather hang out with those closest to you?

[00:20:09]Like I said, I think the point is pretty clear.  We don’t need an excess of roses, we just need one rose that’s special to us—one rose in whom we  invest our beings. Hundreds of shallow connections mean nothing in the face of three or two  or even one singular genuine connection.

[00:20:26]And from there, the little prince  decides it’s time he leaves the fox. In the way of parting, the  fox gives a last bit of wisdom: “‘Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees  clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes […] It’s the time you  spent on your rose that makes your rose so important […] You must become responsible  forever for what you’ve tamed’” (63-64).

[00:20:51]The fox lays out the explicit interpretation  of the prince’s interaction with the rose garden. Not only that, but he puts it in  terms of visibility. The most important, essential things are invisible. They are  intangible, unquantifiable. When it comes to excess and consumption, you could buy your friends  or your lovers any number of gifts, but that’s not what true connection is all about. Connection  comes through the things you see with your heart—the words, the acts of service, the time  spent fostering your relationship with another.

[00:21:23]Back to the story, the little prince  leaves the fox and wanders around earth some more. I want to highlight  this interaction he has with a train operator. After watching one train go in  one direction, and another in the other, the little prince assumes it was the same  train going one way and back. He asks: “‘They weren’t satisfied, where  they were?’ asked the little prince.

[00:21:41]‘No one is ever satisfied where  he is,’ the switchman said. […] ‘Are they chasing the first  travelers?’ asked the little prince.

[00:21:48]‘They’re not chasing anything.  […] They’re sleeping in there, or else they’re yawning. Only the children are  pressing their noses against the windowpanes.’

[00:21:56]‘Only the children know what they’re looking  for […] They spend their time on a rag doll and it becomes very important, and if  it’s taken away from them, they cry…’ ‘They’re lucky,’ the switchman said” (65).

[00:22:06]I mean, come on, does it get more concrete than  this? This reads as a pretty clear delineation between the priorities and attachments of youth  vs. adults. The switchman saying “No one is ever satisfied where he is” is interesting as  it rings true for even the little prince, and I find it fascinating that the little  prince doesn’t reflect on that observation.

[00:22:26]I do wonder if that says something about  a need for variety in us as humans, perhaps a drive to explore  and make new experiences.

[00:22:34]It would sort of tie back to  something the fox said earlier: “‘That’s another thing that’s been too often  neglected […] It’s the fact that one day is different from the other days, one hour from  the other hours. My hunters, for example, have a rite. They dance with the village girls  on Thursdays. So Thursday’s a wonderful day: I can take a stroll all the way to the vineyards.  If the hunters danced whenever they chose, the days would all be just alike, and  I’d have no holiday at all’” (61).

[00:23:00]As we saw with the lamplighter, monotony isn’t  ideal for anyone. But does that dissatisfaction really come from monotony or does it come from  the need for connection. The hunters go dancing on Thursday and thus have something to look forward  to—something to break up the usualness of their week—and not just anything, but an explicitly  social activity. The monotony of labor often feels like just the opposite—explicitly antisocial—which  creates a dissatisfaction with where we are.

[00:23:29]But at the same time, the adults don’t look  for anything; they don’t look out the windows the way children do. They don’t form a  connection as kids do to their ragdolls.

[00:23:38]Eventually, the little prince  comes to the end of his tale, and the narrator realizes he’s run  out of water. He becomes upset since he will die. He makes his distress  known to the little prince who says: “‘It’s good to have had a friend,  even if you’re going to die’” (67).

[00:23:52]Again, what is living without connection?  The narrator still can’t understand the little prince’s nonchalance and tries to  explain the direness of their situation.

[00:24:01]The little prince says that, if they need  water, they ought to go searching for a well. This only makes the narrator more  upset, but with nothing else he can do, he agrees and they search for a  well. That leads to this moment: “‘The desert is beautiful,’ the little  prince added. And it was true. I’ve always loved the desert. You sit down  on a sand dune. You see nothing. You hear nothing. And yet something shines,  something sings in that silence …” (68).

[00:24:27]These words hearken back to the fox’s message  about the most important things being invisible.

[00:24:32]Despite seeing nothing and hearing nothing, there  is a beauty in the desert. When it comes to other people, the beauty isn’t in what you see and  hear, but it’s about those invisible factors, most importantly, the time spent on  and with one another. Even in our connection to non-human things, it has  more to do with our time and attention than it does with any external factor. To  that point, the little prince later says: “‘People where you live […]  grow five thousand roses in one garden… yet they don’t find what  they’re looking for […] And yet what they’re looking for could be found in a  single rose, or a little water…’” (71).

[00:25:07]The needs deep inside us could be satisfied by  only one single thing, but in a society that prioritizes excess, it’s hard to see that. As a  child, it’s easy to see wonder and specialness in a single flower or in a little water. But  upon growing up? Not so easy at all. The narrator and the little prince do eventually  find a well, and they both drink and survive.

[00:25:29]Now, we have to dive into the ending a little  bit, but if you haven’t read this book, I would highly encourage you to skip  over this section and come back once you’ve read it all for yourself. So, with that  disclaimer out of the way, let’s get into it.

[00:25:41]Presumably, if you’re watching this  bit, you know how the book ends.

[00:25:45]The little prince allows himself to be  bit by a snake, allows himself to die, and in so doing, is able to return back to his  planet. As he’s dying, he tells the narrator: “‘People have stars, but they aren’t the same. For  travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they’re nothing but tiny lights.  And for still others, for scholars, they’re problems. For my businessman, they were  gold. But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you’ll have stars like nobody else.  […] When you look up at the sky at night, since I’ll be living on one of them, since  I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing.  You’ll have stars that can laugh!” (77).

[00:26:27]Again, it’s in our connections with others where  we find meaning in the inanimate—in the mundane.

[00:26:33]The stars mean something to the little prince  because his rose is up there among them. The stars will mean something to the narrator because  the little prince will be out there among them.

[00:26:43]It may be that the things around us have  no intrinsic meaning. Even the stars might not mean anything at all on a cosmic  level. That’s what the nihilist would say, no? But it’s through us that it  all finds meaning. It may not have any meaning inherently, but we  can attribute meaning to all of it.

[00:27:01]From there, we have to talk about the very  end of the book. The little prince disappears, body and all, and the narrator makes  it home, leaving us with these words: “It’s all a great mystery. For you, who  love the little prince, too. As for me, nothing in the universe can be the  same if somewhere, no one knows where, a sheep we never saw has or has not eaten  a rose… Look up at the sky. Ask yourself, ‘Has the sheep eaten the flower or not?’  And you’ll see how everything changes… And no grown-up will ever understand how  such a thing could be so important!” (83).

[00:27:37]What a phenomenal ending, touching back on  this idea of importance—the things grown-ups prioritize vs. kids. But at the same time, it’s  kind of a frustrating ending, isn’t it? After this journey with the little prince, I felt a  need for some definitive answers. I wanted to know for sure that our little prince made it  home and was reunited with his flower. It kind of reminded me of “The Lady or the Tiger” by Frank  R. Stockton, another short story you should read.

[00:28:03]But unlike Stockton’s story, I think Saint  Exupéry is playing with our notions of hope and belief. This is sort of a Schrodinger’s  cat scenario here, where the sheep has and hasn’t eaten the flower at the same time,  but in this case, it all depends on what we ask ourselves. As the narrator says, it’s  in that question that everything changes.

[00:28:22]Our connections create a change within us,  and, by extension, a change within the world.

[00:28:28]It’s one last little metatextual reach to  the audience to make the story go beyond its literal meaning. In a way, all stories are about  change. All good stories have a character arc, and if they don’t, then the lack of change is  the whole point. And so, just as the narrator has changed in his story, he’s basically asking  us here if we will change as well. Will we continue seeing the world as adults do, or will  we take on the child’s perspective of importance?

[00:28:55]There’s certainly also a question about  the nature of death with this ending.

[00:28:59]Are we meant to understand that there is  some assurance in the end? That we will be reunited with our loved ones when we die? I  hope so. And sometimes, hope is all we have.

[00:29:10]To wrap up here, I feel I can’t conclude without  mentioning the book’s dedication. It reads: “To Leon Werth: I ask children to forgive  me for dedicating this book to a grown-up.

[00:29:21]I have a serious excuse: this grown-up is the best  friend I have in the world. I have another excuse: this grown-up can understand everything, even  books for children. I have a third excuse: he lives in France where he is hungry  and cold. He needs to be comforted.

[00:29:38]If all these excuses are not enough,  then I want to dedicate this book to the child whom this grown-up once was. All  grown-ups were children first. (But few of them remember it.) So I correct my dedication:  To Leon Werth when he was a little boy” (0).

[00:29:55]Again, the question here is, will we remember  our childhoods? Do we have the grace and charity and imagination and priority to think of  ourselves as the children we once were?

[00:30:06]In reading The Little Prince for the first time,  part of me wondered if the twist was going to be that the prince was the narrator’s childhood  self. And while that wasn’t literally the case within the text, I do think there’s  a symbolic reading for such a takeaway.

[00:30:20]We might even say that the narrator  and the little prince represent two sides of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It’s not  really a stretch to say that the narrator’s circumstances are based on Saint-Exupery’s  own of being stranded in the Sahara Desert.

[00:30:33]There is so much more to say about this book,  both literally and metaphorically (I even had to cut a portion from this script about the  baobabs), but I’ve been talking for so long now, and I think it’s time to wrap it up. But let me  know your thoughts. Are there any pieces of this book you think I should’ve touched on? How do you  interpret the text? Does it make you as emotional as it makes me? Does it say something about  childhood to you? Please, tell me everything.

[00:30:56]And hey, before you go, take a look at  this poem by one of my patrons, Omri.

[00:31:01]Silence My feelings are like silence, You break them when you speak.

[00:31:07]Like the silence that remains after we sing a sweet, sad, melody before a warm, crackling hearth.

[00:31:13]as the cold wind of the evening  sends chins and noses into hiding beneath our taupe fleeces. tired. fulfilled.

[00:31:22]As the solo guitar scrapes out the same old chords and we sway like branches to the familiar song in no rush. My arms around you for the first time and I don’t really sing  although I know all the words because it means so much more  to watch everyone harmonise.

[00:31:40]Oh, the sweet, sad, silence that remains.

[00:31:44]Most beautiful because I  could never truly describe it.

[00:31:48]And then you ruin it by saying  “that was so powerfully emotional”.

[00:31:53]Don’t worry, we all know. But now it feels like it was just for show.

[00:31:59]For the chance to showcase one of your pieces at  the end of my videos, or if you just like what I do and want to support, you can consider donating  to my Patreon, too. For as little as $3 a month, you can see videos early, hear about the books  I’m reading each month, and join the community Discord. We do prompts there twice a month.  It’s a good time. Our last prompt for April was to take another community member’s poem and do  a scramble or an erasure based on it. It was a lot of fun! You’re seeing my patrons’ names on screen  right now and I truly can’t thank them enough.

[00:32:28]If you want to support me in other ways, all  the algorithm stuff really does help—liking, commenting, subscribing, hyping,  sharing, raking down your volcanoes, the whole shebang. You can follow me on my  socials if you want, but no matter what, keep reading, keep writing, and ultimately,  keep in mind, this is a rough draft.

[00:32:47]And for sticking around till the end of the  video, have a writing prompt! For today’s prompt, I want you to write a short piece framed as  a conversation with yourself as a child. What would they say? How would you respond? Would  you want to tell them or show them anything?

[00:33:01]Let your imagination run wild  with this one and feel free to add some surrealist elements,  like those in The Little Prince.