The Little Prince

The Little Prince, fable by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, published with his own illustrations in French as Le Petit Prince in 1943.

The narrator, a pilot who has crash-landed in a desert, encounters a boy prince from another planet who tells him about his adventures on Earth. The prince has cultivated a precious rose back on his planet and is dismayed to discover that roses are so common on Earth. A desert fox convinces the prince, who is generally scornful of logic, that he is responsible for loving the rose and that this act of giving provides his life with meaning. Satisfied, the prince returns to his planet.