Do you know Antoine De Saint-Exupery? The picture is your first hint.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery is a considerable person in many respects but he is most recognized as the author of The Little Prince, one of the best selling and most translated books ever published. This novella has been translated into 361 languages and dialects and has sold more than 140 million copies worldwide.

The book itself has it's own backstory--more of that later.

de Saint-Extupery

But the author, de Saint-Exupery, as he was known, was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist, artist and pioneering aviator.  His full name is Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger comte de Saint-Exupery.  (Those French, they have a different name for everything.) He has the look of a French aristocrat don't you think?

He was good at quite a few things. He wrote nine books and received several of France's literary awards as well as a United States National Book Award. And he was a noted pilot taking his first flight in 1912 when he was 12, back when flying was still in its barnstorming era, not long after the Wright Brothers showed it could be done.

De Saint-Exupery learned to fly in the French military and was forever smitten. He worked in several professions but always came back to flying... and writing and drawing all the while. In 1926 he flew the mail for Aeropostale from Toulouse, France to Dakar, Senegal, not unlike Charles Lindberg. And daring like Lindberg, he tried to set a record flying from Paris to Saigon. The difference is, he and his co-pilot crashed in the Libyan desert where they almost died of thirst before meeting a nomad on a camel. It was during this adventure he conceived the idea for The Little Prince. You may recall, as his book begins, the The Little Prince mysteriously appears to him in the desert on the day after this crash.

He almost lost his life crashing again in 1938 flying from New York City to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Planes then hadn't yet achieved the records for safety of today's air travel. And to disprove an old adage, the third time was not a charm. In 1943, de Saint-Exupery, still suffering emotionally from this second crash, had rejoined his French air squadron and insisted he be given a long reconnaissance flight... a flight from which he never returned. He was 43.

Back to The Little Prince, de Saint-Exupery worked with the idea over time and would often write The Little Prince and his other books until he was content. The Little Prince was actually written in New York where de Saint-Exupery lived for a time up to World War II and was first copyrighted in 1943, the year he died.

He often wrote on a knee-pad strapped to his leg as he flew long distances. His colleagues had visions of him crashing but he proved himself adept in both flying and writing... often at the same time.

Being somewhat severe critic of his own work, he wrote and rewrote until he felt satisfied. He also did all of the book's drawings and artwork, such were his talents.

The Little Prince was/is a most popular children's book, one I had never read until just recently. That's kind of "the thing" with well-written books, they may appeal to all ages on the strength of their stories.

This charming tale is written with the perspective of a child's eyes and mind into the world of what children become... adults. It is fanciful and descriptive of that perspective as to what sadly, some of us have become and how strange it looks to the observing innocent child. It is a rich moral tale in how differently we often let the grown-up world change our lives in a less joyful way. As we see ourselves through the Little Prince's eyes, we are somewhat disappointing. It is a simple wake-up to what is really important and what is lost in the the translation of aging.

de Saint-Exupery's 'Rose'

De Saint-Exupery puts all of himself into this book: his life, his home and his love. Where is his love in the book? It is in the one object that drives the Little Prince, his rose that he left on his small planet. The rose that he tends and cares for, the rose he covers at night so it will be safe from the cold and creatures that might devour it. The rose that is the most precious thing he has and cares for. And not coincidentally, this vain and petulant rose of The Little Prince is the inspiration and center of de Saint-Exupery's life, his Salvadoran wife, Consuelo de Saint-Exupery.

The fantasy of the book is well-told and enjoyed because no matter the reader, there is a lesson to be had in a strange and different way.