Thumbs up for The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, translated by Richard Howard. Children’s.
Believe it or not, but I never read this when I was kid. Now that I’ve finally got around to reading it (in English, as opposed to struggling through in French as I had previously attempted), I can see why it never drew me. It’s charming, yes, but I can’t say that I have ever loved parables. So while I enjoyed it, it’s not going to become one of my favorite books, as it is for so many people.
If I’ve told you these details about Asteroid B-612 and if I’ve given you its number, it is on account of the grown-ups. 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!”
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