The All-Time Best-Selling Children's Book Outshines The Cat In The Hat

Stocking your kids' bookshelves with nostalgic reads is a sweet bonding experience. There's a reason classics like "Pat the Bunny" and "Goodnight Moon" are among the all-time best-selling children's books. But one children's book has far outshone others in sales, and the name may surprise you. "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has sold over 200 million copies since its initial publication in 1943, beating out the likes of "Charlotte's Web" with 50 million copies sold and "The Cat in the Hat" with nearly 16 million copies. This makes "The Little Prince" not only one of the world's best-selling children's titles — it's one of the best-selling books, period.

The novella features iconic illustrations by Saint-Exupéry and follows a pilot who crashes in the Sahara Desert. There, he meets a small boy called the prince who comes from a tiny asteroid, and together, the duo navigates a philosophical yet whimsical conversation about love and loss before they each say goodbye to return home. But given that "The Little Prince" is such a widely beloved children's classic, its darker origin story might come as a surprise. 

As a pilot himself, Saint-Exupéry wrote the story while he was unhappily grounded in New York during the height of World War II, finding inspiration in his own plane crash in the Sahara that left him and his copilot stranded for days. Some even believe that both the narrator and the little prince are actually one, each representative of Saint-Exupéry. 

With some children's books, it's easy to understand their appeal — be it a catchy rhyme scheme, playfully silly story, or colorful illustrations. But in a debate between users on the Reddit forum r/books, it seems "The Little Prince" captures a different kind of magic. Its sweet and simple narration appeals to children, but it also carries a deeper meaning for adult readers. "The Prince brings the pilot back to a childlike innocence and creativity that a lot of adults tend to lose as they grow older," says one user, while another added, "There's something about this book that speaks to people around the world at a very deep level."

Of course, as with all books, that doesn't mean everyone is a fan. "I always found it very creepy and psychologically uneven," says one Redditor. But for many others, "The Little Prince" is a story they've carried with them throughout their lives, turning to it through various milestones. "I know it sounds cheesy, but it felt like a soul book," says one commenter. "I really needed it at the time, and many passages just spoke out to me and genuinely gave me some life lessons." 

As another astute Redditor notes, there's something uniquely moving about a book whose meaning can shift so beautifully as you age. "It would be interesting if someone read it every year from a child to an aged adult to see how it changed over time for them," says the commenter. "I bet it would. That's what makes it great."