Reading and Literacy Promotion Through ICT Vocational High School of Veterinary Medicine, Dobrich, Bulgaria Book of the term The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944) He was born in Lyon, France He was a French writer and pilot

His life In 1921, he began his military service and was sent to Strasbourg for training as a pilot He became one of the pioneers of international postal flight; Saint-Exupéry kept writing and flying until the beginning of World War II In 1944, Saint-Exupéry’s plane crashed in the Mediterranean and disappeared In 1998, a fisherman found Saint-Exupéry's silver chain bracelet in the ocean south of Marseille Investigators confirmed that the twisted wreckage of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, extracted in October 2003, was Saint-Exupéry's

His work Saint-Exupéry's work is greatly inspired by his experiences as a pilot: L'aviateur (1926) Courrier sud (1929) (Southern Mail) Vol de nuit (1931) (Night Flight) Terre des Hommes (1939) (Wind, Sand and Stars) Pilote de Guerre (1942) (Flight to Arras) Lettre à un Otage (1943) (Letter to a Hostage) Le Petit Prince (1943) (The Little Prince) Citadelle (1948) (The Wisdom of the Sands)

The Little Prince The story Saint-Exupéry’s novel, 1943; written near New York in 1942 Profound and idealistic points about life and love in time of war The writer imagines himself lost in the Sahara desert after a plane crash He meets a young extra-terrestrial prince The novel includes a number of drawings by Saint-Exupéry himself, which are reproduced in most versions

The characters The King rules the stars because he orders them to do the things that they would naturally do anyway The Conceited Man who wants to be admired by everyone, but lives alone on his planet The Drunkard drinks to forget he is ashamed of drinking The Businessman who is always busy counting the stars he believes he owns. He wants to buy more stars. The Lamplighter who lives on an asteroid which rotates once a minute The Geographer who spends all of his time making maps, but never leaves his desk to explore The King The Businessman The Conceited Man The Geographer The Lamplighter

The Prince The prince lives on an asteroid, B612, which has three volcanoes and a rose He spends his days caring for his asteroid, pulling out the baobab trees that are trying to take root there The Prince leaves one day to see what the rest of the universe is like, and visits several other asteroids each of which is inhabited by an adult who is foolish in his own way Then, he visits Earth where he meets lots of roses, a fox, an aviator and a snake who bites him, so he can go back to his asteroid

The rose The Little Prince is a story about love, the love Saint-Exupéry had for a rose: his wife Consuelo The writer met Consuelo Suncin, the widow of a journalist from Argentina The rose of the little prince, like Saint-Exupéry’s wife, was whimsical and temperamental, nonconformist and funny Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry wrote The Tale of the Rose a year or two after his disappearance In 1979, the manuscript was discovered in a trunk; its publication in France in 2000 became a sensation

The fox Saint-Exupéry’s friend Silvia Reinhardt was his model to create the character of the fox The Little Prince meets and tames the fox on Earth (chapter 21 of the book) The fox explains to the prince that his rose is unique and special, because it is the one that he loves He tells the prince the meaning of love and friendship and his secret: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye ”

Conclusion The Little Prince has been translated into more than 100 languages and, to date, has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide In 2003, a small asteroid moon, Petit-Prince (discovered in 1998), was named after the Little Prince's inspiration Asteroid 2578 Saint-Exupéry was named after the author of The Little Prince A musical in French, "Le Petit Prince" by well-known French musical composer Richard Cocciante showed at the Casino de Paris from in 2002-2003

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