A Prince Among the Stars

The Little Prince

By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Narrated and Retold)

Once upon a time, a pilot crashed his plane in the middle of the Sahara Desert. With only enough water to last a few days, he was trying to repair his engine when he heard a small, curious voice.

“Please, draw me a sheep.”

The pilot looked up and saw a small boy standing in front of him. He was unlike any child the pilot had ever seen. He wasn’t thirsty, tired, or afraid. He simply asked for a drawing. Surprised, the pilot, who once loved drawing as a child but had long given it up, tried his best. After a few attempts, he drew a box and told the boy, “The sheep you want is inside.” To his astonishment, the boy was delighted.

And so began the pilot’s unusual friendship with the Little Prince.

Over the next several days, as the pilot worked on his plane, the Little Prince told stories of his home — a tiny asteroid named B-612, no larger than a house. On his little planet, the Prince spent his time cleaning his volcanoes, pulling out baobab sprouts (which could destroy the planet if left unchecked), and tending to a beautiful but vain rose.

This rose was unlike any other. She had bloomed from a mysterious seed and captivated the Prince with her beauty. She was proud and demanding, often exaggerating her needs and feelings. Though the Prince loved her, he felt confused and hurt by her pride. One day, he decided to leave his planet to learn about life and seek wisdom.

He visited six other asteroids, each inhabited by a single adult. Each of these adults represented a flaw that grown-ups often display:

1. The King, who claimed to rule over everything but had no subjects. He saw the Prince as someone to command, even offering to make him a minister of justice for stars.

2. The Vain Man, who only wanted praise and admiration. “Clap your hands,” he said. “I am the most handsome, the richest, the best-dressed man on the planet!” Of course, he was also the only man on the planet.

3. The Drunkard, who drank to forget that he was ashamed of drinking.

4. The Businessman, who spent his days counting stars, believing he owned them just because he had counted them first.

5. The Lamplighter, who lit and extinguished a streetlamp every minute due to his planet’s fast rotation. He was the only one the Prince respected, because he thought of something beyond himself.

6. The Geographer, who recorded facts but had never seen the places he wrote about. He didn’t explore or observe — he simply wrote what others told him.

All these encounters made the Prince realize that grown-ups can be very strange.

Finally, the Prince arrived on Earth, where he first landed in the desert. He wandered alone for a while until he found a fox. When he asked the fox to play with him, the fox replied, “I cannot play with you. I am not tamed.”

“What does ‘tamed’ mean?” the Prince asked.

“It means to establish ties,” the fox explained. “To me, you are just a little boy like a hundred thousand others. But if you tame me, then we will need each other. You will be unique in all the world to me.”

So the Little Prince tamed the fox, and in doing so, he learned the secret the fox gave him before they parted:

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

The Prince then stumbled upon a rose garden and realized there were many roses that looked exactly like his. At first, he was saddened. He had thought his rose was unique. But then he remembered what the fox said — it is not appearances that make something special, but the relationship and love you give it. His rose was special because she was his, because he had watered her, protected her, and listened to her.

Eventually, the Prince met the pilot. As their days together passed, the pilot grew fond of the boy. But the Prince was ready to return to his asteroid. He missed his rose and wanted to go home. However, he couldn’t physically return through normal means — instead, he asked a desert snake, whose bite could send him back to the heavens, to help him.

The pilot was heartbroken. The Prince explained that it would seem like he died, but not to be sad. His body would be left behind like an old shell. “Look up at the stars,” the Prince said. “And when you do, it will be as if all the stars are laughing, because I will be laughing on one of them.”

The next morning, the Prince was gone. The pilot finally repaired his plane and left the desert. But he never forgot the Little Prince. Every time he looked up at the sky, he heard laughter among the stars.

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Themes and Messages:

The Little Prince is more than a children’s story — it’s a poetic tale about the nature of love, loneliness, and human connection. It criticizes the narrow-mindedness of adulthood and praises the innocent perspective of children.

The story teaches us that the most important things in life — love, friendship, loyalty — cannot be seen with the eyes, but felt with the heart. It reminds us to look beyond appearances, to care deeply, and to never lose the sense of wonder and imagination we had as children.