Just Say No to Pap

The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Harbrace, 1943 translation by Katherine Woods
French original "Le Petit Prince" 1943
113 pp.


My first Classics Club Spin book was "The Little Prince", scheduled to be read during August and reported on soon after. I am awfully late and it's not only my move that stopped me. I have dreaded writing this review and dragged my feet because... I hated this book. There, I've written it. What a relief.

And it seems that I am not alone. There is a thread at Goodreads entitled "Am I the only one who hates this book?"

Oh, it does have those cute, whimsical drawings that weren't too cloying, I suppose. And it was short, thankfully. But beyond that, there was nothing that I liked even a little. To me it reeked of heavy-handed moralizing and it was wimpy to boot. Maybe it was better in the world of 1943 when it was written, and World War II was in full swing. I only finished it because it was my Club Spin book.

I'm sure that saying such things will gain me criticism along the line that I just don't understand because I am grown up, like the book says. Alas, I fear trying to answer this charge is like answering the old question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" There is no answer. However, in my defense I will just say that I love all things AA Milne, "Olivia", "Little House on the Prairie", and the children's poems in "Silver Pennies".

Onward and upward to far, far better books! "Tale of Two Cities" anyone?