I was surprised -- because the store was so picked over already -- to find a 60th anniversary copy of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, one of my all-time favorite books, and I simply couldn't resist bringing it home.
If you haven't read it, you should. It'll take you one sitting to get through the whole book, but its messages will stay with you far longer. I don't really think it's a children's book, although that is typically how bookstores categorize it. For those of you who have read it, what do you think: more for children or for those of us who were once children and have perhaps forgotten it? (You gotta read the book's dedication to get that reference.)
In one passage, the little prince is explaining life on his very small planet, where baobab seeds threaten to grow out of control every day. He insists to the narrator that:
It's a question of discipline ... When you've finished washing and dressing
each morning, you must tend your planet. You must be sure you pull up
the baobabs regularly ... Sometimes there's no harm in postponing your
work until later. But with baobabs, it's always a catastrophe. (pp. 15-16)
Get the book, and you'll see from the narrator's illustration the havoc that unchecked baobabs can wreak on a small planet. More important, though, is that we take away the message about discipline and the dangers of procrastination.
