The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint Exupéry The book starts off by giving some context of who the narrator is - an airplane pilot who took interest in drawing at the young age of six, but whose artistic talent was not recognized, let alone cultured, by grown-ups. One day this pilot has an accident and crashes his airplane into the Sahara desert, somewhere very far from civilization. But, of course to his surprise, he is met by a boy called the little prince, who asks him to draw him a sheep. He is persistent: time and again, he points out the flaws in the pilot's drawings, until finally the pilot presents a drawing of a box, which he says contains the sheep. With this the little prince is content; he uses his imagination and sees through the holes in the box what the sheep looks like and does. Over several days of the pilot (unsuccessfully) attempting to fix his plane, the little prince tells stories of his adventures. He did not come from the planet Earth; rather, his planet is the tiny asteroid known as B-612, where he lived alone, tending to his volcanoes, uprooting baobab sprouts, and appreciating the sunsets. There is also a flower on B-612, who tells the little prince that she is no like any other. The wind carried her, a seed, to his planet, and he tended to her needs as a plant. Once her petals bloomed, she started talking to him, often tasking him to taking best care of her - she was a proud, vane personality. But over time the little prince grew attached to her; unlike the other flowers on his planet, she spoke, and she was his only company. He eventually tired of her presence, though, and - to his later regret, as he felt he had just not understood anything about judgment and choice at the time - left. The little prince eventually landed, in consecution, upon several asteroids. Each of these was inhabited by a single man, and each man reflected an attribute of his understanding - or perhaps, confusion - in the ways of grown-ups. On one asteroid, a king reigned over everything in the universe; he was, however, was a good man, and would not order his subjects (everything in the universe, indeed) to do anything which they were incapable of. On the next, a conceited man, who would only hear praise; but the little prince could not understand what there was of interest in that. On the third, a tippler who was attempting to drink away his shame in drinking. On the fourth, there was a business man concerned with matters of consequence: administering the stars, all of which he owns, and which make him rich enough to be capable of buying any new stars. The little prince's trips to these planets each took form of a chapter in the story, and they are almost poetic. Each of these men, localized on their private, lonesome planets, deal with things that matter to them; but to the little prince, they seem strange, for they are of little use to the world. They are all focused, in ways, solely on themselves - their power, significance. But they are all insignificant. On the fifth planet, the little prince found a man who had been ordered to toggle a lamppost in accordance with the time of day. At each evening, he would activate the light, and at dawn, he would shut it off. He eventually realized, however, that these orders were a curse: while he had all time besides when he switched the light to himself, his asteroid was, indeed, spinning faster and faster. During the little prince's visit, the man's planet had accelerated so that his days were merely a minute long, and so he no longer had time for himself at all. This man, to the little prince, was different from the rest. He was deeply devoted to a task that did have an effect on the world; his toggling of the light, in a sense, created a star present to the rest of the world on this periodic cycle. The little prince felt sorry for him; he suggested that the man could have all the time for himself as he wanted by simply walking in counter to the rotation of his asteroid, so that he never faced dusk nor dawn, and so would not be required to toggle the light. But this did not help the man, for his greatest want was to sleep, and if he were to sleep, he would inevitably miss switching the lights as he was ordered. The little prince left, concluding that this man was very unlucky. On the sixth and penultimate destination, there was a man called a geographer. He explained, to the little prince, that he was someone who charted out the world, making note of entities of geographic significance, such as the presence of a mountain or ocean. But he did not go adventuring himself; he left that up to the explorers. It was his job to verify that information the explorers returned with was true - not by checking himself, but by being certain that the explorers were speaking in good truth (they could not be drunk, for instance, for they would see double). Once that was so, he required evidence be retrieved; from a large mountain, large rocks, for example. Only then did he make note of what was found, and even then, only when they were entities of consequence. If an object were ephemeral, meaning it was prone to simply disappearing at half a moment's notice, it was not worth recording in the geographer's register. And such, the geographer described, was the flower on the little prince's planet. This planted regret in him, for he had left his fragile friend exposed to the world's dangers. But he headed forwards nonetheless. The geographer recommended his next destination: the planet known as Earth. Earth was a strange planet, to the little prince, for he was told it was populated by many men, but where he landed, there was not a person in sight. Instead, he was greeted by a golden snake, who told him of his location (a desert in Africa) and heard his story. He told the little prince that, despite his appearance, he was of great power; with a single touch, he could send a person to the ground from whence they came, and thus he could send the little prince back home. The little prince remained in silence, finally stating he well understood the snake's riddle; then he left to roam the desert. During his desert travels, the little prince met several things. First, the peak of a mountain, where he called out to the people of the world to be his friends, as he was alone; but they only echoed in response. Then a desert flower, who told him there was only, perhaps, six or seven men in the world. And a garden, where he was faced with an uncomforting revelation: the flower on B-612 was naught but a common rose, a seed blown astray. He had thought he was rich for having a unique flower, but as the so-similar roses in the garden gazed towards him, he knew it was not so; and he cried into the grass. Eventually a fox came and said good morning to him. The little prince thought he might play with the fox, but the fox replied that he could not, for he had not tamed him. He described to the little prince what it meant to tame; to do so was to create a connection between one's self and the fox, so that the fox would, to the prince, be different from all the other foxes, and so that the prince would be, to him, different from all other boys. Indeed, it would bring purpose to the fox: where the sounds of any other would send him to hide in his burrow, the little prince's steps would call out to him, "like music," that they would meet together. And the field of grains, which produced bread that the fox took no interest in, would be different, for it would remind him of the little prince's golden hair, and the sound of the wind passing through it would also. And so, recognizing that he had, perhaps, been tamed by his flower at his home, the little prince tamed the fox. Eventually there came a time when the little prince had to move on. He met the fox, and told him he was leaving, and of course the fox was sad, for he had been tamed and established ties with the boy. But he assured the little prince that it was alright. He had, for instance, left an impression upon the fox, and the fox would always be reminded of him by the color of the grain fields. He told the prince, then, to go to the flower garden, for he would see that his rose was unique - to him, like no other. And so he did, and he did see. He spoke to the roses; he told them they were no different from each other, and that they did not carry significance, for they did not establish ties with anyone. He did not water and tend to them like he did to his rose. They were not special like his rose was. And thus he left them.