The Little Prince"The novella is one of the most-translated books in the world and has been voted the best book of the 20th century in France. Translated into 300 languages and dialects, selling nearly two million copies annually, and with year-to-date sales of over 140 million copies worldwide, it has become one of the best-selling books ever published." from Wikipedia The Little Prince is one of the best-selling books of all time with more than 140 million copies sold. Here is the full text of the book: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-ExuperyOnce when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.
In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion."
I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked something like this:
I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.
But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?"
My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of a boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:
The grown-ups’ response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.
In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.
Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always say:
"That is a hat."
Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man. Book information: Reading age: 10+ Word count: 16900 Number of unique words: 2100, Word list Number of pages: 96 Year: 1943 Sales (millions): 140 Links: Amazon, Wikipedia, YouTube, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Common Sense Media, Lexile Similar books: | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl Age: 6+ Year: 1964 Pages: 192 Word count: 31,000 Unique word count: 3,245 Sales (millions): 20 More... | | Matilda by Roald Dahl Age: 6+ Year: 1988 Word count: 39,919 | | Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein Age: 6+ Year: 1974 Word count: 12,256 Sales (millions): 6 | | Grimm’s Fairy Tales by Grimm Brothers Age: 6+ Year: 1982 Word count: 280,000 Unique word count: 7,400 Sales (millions): 135 More... | | Stuart Little by E.B. White Age: 6+ Year: 1945 Word count: 18,991 | | A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein Age: 6+ Year: 1981 Pages: 169 Word count: 10,132 Sales (millions): 4 | | Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl Age: 6+ Year: 1972 Pages: 159 More... | | Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater Age: 6+ Year: 1938 Pages: 139 More... | | Falling Up by Shel Silverstein Age: 6+ Year: 1996 Pages: 184 Word count: 10,942 Sales (millions): 2 | | Aesop’s Fables by Aesop Age: 6+ Year: -570 Pages: 120 Word count: 38,500 Unique word count: 4,100 Sales (millions): 80 More... | | Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl Age: 6+ Year: 1970 Pages: 96 More... | | The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden Age: 6+ Year: 1960 Pages: 144 Word count: 25,418 | | Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish Age: 6+ Year: 1963 | | Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White Age: 7+ Year: 1952 Word count: 31,938 Sales (millions): 50 | | Anne of Green Gables (Anne Book 1) by L.M. Montgomery Age: 7+ Year: 1908 Word count: 114,355 Sales (millions): 50 | | Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift Age: 7+ Year: 1726 More... | | The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Age: 7+ Year: 1908 Pages: 224 Word count: 58,428 Sales (millions): 25 | | The BFG by Roald Dahl Age: 7+ Year: 1982 | | The Call of the Wild by Jack London Age: 7+ Year: 1903 More... | | The Witches by Roald Dahl Age: 7+ Year: 1983 Pages: 208 More... | More books: 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 See also: Classic Children Books Classic School Age Children Books Classic Books for Teenagers Classic Children Books by Age Best-selling Books of All Time The Benefits of Reading for Kids Why Learn English Language? Shortest Books Shortest Books (unique words) Longest Books Best way to learn English How NOT to Learn English! CVC Words What you need to know to learn a new language? Why I forget what I learned? Vocabulary Size More...
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