Straight from the heart: Why I want to be the little prince

“Once upon a time there was a little prince who lived on a planet that was scarcely any bigger than himself…” Every time I begin to read this book, tears well up in my eyes. Outwardly, the little prince was no different from a 10-year-old boy, but his curiosity about the world, kindness to people and loyalty to love had warmed my heart so many times.

The little prince tells a story of a pilot who crashed his airplane into the desert only to meet a traveling boy from another planet. The traveling boy was the little prince, from a small planet named B-612. The pilot listened to the little prince’s travel experience of 6 planets where he met a variety of people.

The little prince

During his journey, the little prince had met six persons with different personalities, ideas, and outlook on life, such as the power-hungry king, the conceited man and the stuffy lamplighter. What unites them is that they no longer cared about their spiritual needs, but the matters of consequence, like possession and power. The little prince called them “the grown-up”. “The grown-ups are certainly very, very odd...” said the little prince. He didn’t understand why the grown-ups were obsessed with the figure but ignored the true love and beauty around them. Unlike the grown-ups, the little prince knew how to love someone. On his planet, he fell in love with a beautiful rose. He loved his rose so much that he cared for it every night by protecting it with a glass globe. After he left his own planet, whenever he missed his rose, he would look into the sky, looking for B-612. Normally, he failed to find it, because it was too small. So, he fel lin love with all the stars in the sky, for there might be a planet where his beloved rose grew.

The little prince and his rose

When the pilot was a kid, he also disliked the grown-up. He thought it was the adult that made him give up the dream of becoming a great painter. He made up his mind that when he grew up, he was not going to be one of them. But he still became a grown-up. Luckily, he met the little prince who told him “what is essential is invisible”, because one could only feel it with his heart. The little prince’s innocence and kindness had finally melted his heart.

Anthony, the writer of The Little Prince, wrote the book during the Second World War. He expected that the little prince could save the grown-ups who had lost the ability to love. We hope that you can feel the call of life when you read The Little Prince.