The first time I read it in Spanish, back in 1996 when I was 9 damn years old. After sixteen years I read it again, this time in the original language (French), when -as arithmetic dictates- I am 25.In general I enjoyed reading the book in French, it was easy without me being an expert on the language, it has interesting reflections but the best thing for me was to have the chance to reassess it. I give it 2 from 5 stars and I recommend to read it, though not to expect to be awesome.
It is widely believed that it is a children's book, but it is not!!. It's impossible to understand it and enjoy it when you are still a child and haven't lived the whole spectrum of things such as love or friendship, when you haven't taken decisions about life itself when you haven't left yet your planet and understood that there are many other planets around. Precisely for that impossibility for children to understand it, I think it is why the author rather dedicates the book to the child that is within us and that now is a grown up. In a nutshell it is a book written for our past, not for the present children...(the power of literature).
Still the book has interesting parts and messages. The one I liked the most is the one with the fox, it is a nice reflection about what friendship (and love) is, about the power of those to enrich the world and the experience of life, no matter if there are tears, that's the part where the highlight of the book appears, from the voice of the good-old fox:
"... On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux..."
"...we can only see with our heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes..."
I love this book - I've read it in English, French and Russian. I made all of my students in Russia study it - AND I have a quote tattooed on my shoulder ("the stars are beautiful, because of a flower that cannot be seen"). Slightly obsessed!
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