There are many different kinds of love. In my experience love comes up as a topic in books fairly often. One of my favorite movies starts with the quote that ” If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around…Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.”
This week’s books deal with love. The first book is an old favorite. Often it is not read until High School ( maybe that was just my experience) but for me the story of “The Little Prince” is a story about love. Originally written in French, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, it chronicles the life of a little Prince who comes from another planet, as seen through the eyes of a pilot who has crash-landed in the Sahara. The Prince has left his planet of three small volcanoes and a single rose in search of answers to his questions. His travels take him to many other planets before he finally lands on Earth and meets the hapless pilot. It is in these travels that he learns “The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words….But I was too young to know how to love her…” This book also has one of my favorite quotes. “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Our second book is not so grand as the Little Prince, but I fell in love with it when I read it. “The Great Fuzz Frenzy” by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel is about a prairie dog colony, and the madness that ensues when a golden retriever drops a tennis ball into their hole. This book is intended for a younger audience. But the love shines through. We meet the Prairie Dogs – Big Bark and Pip are the two main characters, and discover that although Big Bark has some serious flaws ( just like the Prince’s flower) he is still found to be loveable by his colony. And just like the child in the Emperor’s New Clothes, Pip tells it like it is.
Recommended ages for these two books: 10 and up for The Little Prince, and 6 and up for The Great Fuzz Frenzy.
Happy Reading!
The Children's Hour 
Leave a comment