Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: A Life to discover
Companion Activities for The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: A Life to discover
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyons, France on June 29, 1900. As a child, he was educated in both France and Switzerland. His passions were aviation and writing. He achieved the stature of a national hero in France. He died just a year after the publication of The Little Prince, on July 31, 1944, during a solo flight over the Mediterranean Sea during World War II. Encourage students to engage in online research about his extraordinary life. He is particularly famous for his novel, Wind, Sand, and Stars that was first published in 1939. It was named the winner of the prestigious National Book Award in the United States. In honor of his memory, his family created the annual Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Medal for the best illustrated children’s book in France. The award is the French equivalent of the Caldecott Medal in the USA and the Kate Greenaway Prize in Great Britain. Based on information gained about his life, gifted children may create their own picture book biography of the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
The story of the child hero of The Little Prince is moved forward by his visits to planets with particularly exotic inhabitants that include a solitary street lamplighter and a geographer who knows nothing about the earth science of his home planet. After students have met these and additional inhabitants of previously unknown planets or asteroids, ask them to use their creativity to give the petite explorer yet one more visit to a newly discovered planet or asteroid and portray its solitary inhabitant as they imagine him to be in both words and drawings.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is especially well known for his reflective quotations from The Little Prince. The most famous of these is the wisdom of the untamed fox that the child meets upon his arrival on the Planet Earth. “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Elicit online searches by children for additional quotations from the novella. Ask them to choose a favorite word grouping to illustrate in the child-like style of the poet-aviator.
The Little Prince can inspire studies of history (World War II), biography (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry), aviation, astronomy, modern fables, and much, much more. Parents, teachers, and students will find a multitude of teaching guides for the study of The Little Prince on the Internet.
Summing up, this reviewer quotes an extraordinarily gifted women of seventy-plus years.
I love the metaphoric bedrock of The Little Prince. I have read it many times throughout my life. The meaning shifts for me based upon my life state of time. Age and maturity greatly affect my reaction to it. When I think of the book, I remember three basic truths that have stayed with me throughout the decades. The heart sees; eyes are very limited. Love costs in terms of emotion and effort. Don’t judge too quickly or too much.
