The Little Prince – extracts from Chapter 1

In Chapter 1 of this classic book, the Little Prince has done a drawing (Drawing Number One) of a big snake called a boa constrictor that has swallowed an elephant. The story is about how grown-ups responded to his drawing.

The dots (or ellipses) … indicate that a bit of text has been left out.

“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 the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained…

“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…

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to 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.”

To read the whole story and all the other chapters, ask a grown-up to buy or borrow a copy of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It will take you out of this world to a tiny planet where the Little Prince lives all alone …