Sharing classic children’s books – The Little Prince

I write a lot about books because I am passionate about reading and encouraging my children to read. I took a little video of my 5 year old yesterday. We were reading her school book and I was blown away with how much progress she has made so far in Year 1. Both my children love to read and I’m excited about all the books I’ve been buying them for Christmas.

The Folio Society recently got in touch about some of the latest titles they have published. The Folio Society are a London based publishing company, renowned in the literary sphere as being creators of beautifully illustrated editions of the world’s finest literature. This Autumn they added to their children’s classics with The Little Prince, by Antoine de St Exupéry, The Hundred and One Dalmatians, by Dodie Smith, House of Pooh, by A. A. Milne, Five Children and It, by Edith Nesbit and Stig of the Dump, by Clive King. I enjoyed all of these when I was younger and I’m so glad I can share them again with my children.

The Little Prince, by Antoine de St Exupéry

We were kindly sent a copy of The Little Prince, by Antoine de St Exupéry to review. I read this over 20 years ago when I was at Uni. I used to have a lot of time to read and loved discovering new authors. Although I still have that copy I was delighted to add such a beautiful hard-backed copy to our library.

The little prince lived on a very small planet, hardly any bigger than a house. Lonely on his tiny world, one day the prince, catching hold of a migration of wild birds, left on a journey across the stars to learn life’s mysteries of love, loss and beauty in a universe corrupted by grown-up logic.

First published in 1943, and since translated into 270 languages and 26 different alphabets, few books have touched the world like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s modern fable The Little Prince. In its first Folio edition, this definitive two-volume production includes a new introduction by Saint-Exupéry’s biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff, as well as restored versions of Saint-Exupéry’s unforgettable illustrations, as inseparable from the story as the words themselves. You can read more about how The Folio Society put the edition together on their blog.

I’m so excited to share this with my children. I really enjoyed re-reading The Little Prince and found the addition of the commentary volume really interesting. They are both housed in a beautiful slipcase and this would make a beautiful gift at Christmas or for a birthday.