Fiction 1943
The Little Prince
- General, the track now showing
- #8
- ADHD
- #10
The most translated novel in history and one of the few books that lands at ages 8, 28 and 68 with different meanings each time. Teaches attention, attachment, grief and the cost of adult seriousness without a single culture-specific reference.
The chapter guide
What makes a life meaningful is not possession or status but the patient attention, care and responsibility through which another being becomes unique to us.
Chapters I–IV
A pilot whose childhood imagination was dismissed meets a mysterious prince who can see the sheep inside a drawn box.
Chapter V
The prince explains that neglected baobab seedlings can grow until they overwhelm his small planet.
Chapter VI
The prince remembers watching forty-four sunsets on a day when he was sad.
Chapters VII–IX
A quarrel reveals the prince’s love for his difficult rose, and their belated honesty arrives as he leaves his planet.
Chapter X
A king claims universal authority but issues only commands that circumstances have already made inevitable.
Chapter XI
A vain man can hear every remark only as admiration and wants the prince to confirm his superiority.
Chapter XII
A drinker drinks to forget the shame he feels about drinking, trapping himself in a closed loop.
Chapter XIII
A businessman counts and claims the stars while doing nothing that cares for or benefits them.
Chapter XIV
A dutiful lamplighter obeys an obsolete rule so often that he has no time to rest or notice his world.
Chapter XV
A geographer records discoveries but never explores, then sends the prince to Earth after dismissing his rose as ephemeral.
Chapters XVI–XX
On Earth the prince meets a snake, a rootless flower and his own echo before a garden of roses makes him feel ordinary and deceived.
Chapter XXI
The fox teaches that time, ritual and care create a bond, making the prince’s rose unique and giving him responsibility for her.
Chapter XXII
A railway switchman sends rushing passengers back and forth while only children attend closely to what they seek.
Chapter XXIII
A merchant sells thirst-quenching pills to save time, but the prince would spend the saved minutes walking slowly to a fountain.
Chapters XXIV–XXV
With their water gone, the pilot and prince walk through the night and find a well whose water matters because of the search and shared effort.
Chapter XXVI
The prince accepts the snake’s bite so he can return to the rose for whom he remains responsible.
Chapter XXVII
Years later the pilot lives with uncertainty about the prince, the sheep and the rose, then asks readers to watch for his friend’s return.
Scorecard
- Universality
- 5 of 5
- Evidence
- 5 of 5
- Reread value
- 5 of 5