I based my searches on “The Little Prince” and found a lot of interesting ideas in a surprisingly short amount of time. There were a few dramatic interpretations that looked interesting. The first is a play (presumably for children) that combines the story of “The Little Prince” with “Alice in Wonderland.” This made me think about how we view “children’s literature” versus “grown-up literature” and the role that childhood plays in the minds of adults. Another play portrays the prince as having African descent and makes the pilot a woman, which obviously changes the gender and racial implications of the original novel.
There is a lot of beautiful art based on the book, most of it very whimsical and colorful. A large number of portraits of the prince also include the fox– this made me think about how interesting it is that people are so fixated on the fox, who is ultimately a tragic figure. Why does tragedy demand our attention? Perhaps the most interesting thing I found was a syllabus for a class based solely on a Chinese translation of “The Little Prince.” The professor reasoned that the book contains ideas and themes that can be understood across a wide range of cultures, and is thus a good tool for language and cultural learning. So the question: what makes the book so universal?
https://www.list.co.uk/event/1377908-alice-and-the-little-prince/ (Alice)
https://www.posterlounge.com/p/696994.html (Fox)
https://stratford-circus.com/event/the-little-prince/#data-sc-tabs-alt-index%3D%220%22=overview (African descent)
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/melsanborn/files/syllabus_-_fiction_in_chinese.docx (Chinese translation)
Using The Little Prince to explore children’s vs. adult literature is a great starting point, as is the character of the fox. But if you wanted to do something cross cultural, that Chinese translation from the syllabus could be lots of fun to work with!
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