Opening Doors

Peter Sís
Photo: Palma Fiocco

 The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is Peter Sís' favorite book. "When I got it from my father, he made a point that it's a special book," Sís told me when I got to interview him for Kirkus Reviews about his book The Pilot and the Little Prince. "It was about secrets." At the time, Sís was a child growing up in Prague under a totalitarian regime, and The Little Prince transported him outside of its walls. "This was a door through which I could go myself," he says. "I could go to another place or another planet."

The Pilot and the Little Prince took Sís a long time to write. "The Galileo (Starry Messenger) and Darwin (The Tree of Life) books happened while this project percolated," says Sís. "With Darwin and Galileo, I wanted to show children that people would be against them, and they'd have to face challenges." On the other hand, Sís says, "Saint-Exupéry is about the poetry." But it's also a history of the airplane. Born in 1900, Saint-Exupéry started flying at the dawn of aviation and, as a pilot, saw dramatic changes in the development of the airplane. The Lockheed P-38 Lightning Antoine flies at the end of the book is almost as advanced as the planes today, according to Sís. He simultaneously captures both the possibilities of science and the poetry of the era in which the author/artist and aviator lived. This duality resonated with Sís, who grew up reading Jules Verne and watching the films of Georges Méliès, among other artists, to whom he gives a nod in the opening spread.

Sís has returned to The Little Prince at different stages in his life. "As a child, I thought, 'Of course, he talks about how we children know it's an elephant in a boa constrictor.' " These are the secrets Saint-Exupéry confides—that children understand what adults do not. “I remember coming to this country, it was a book of hope," Sís continues. "Reading it to my children later, it was more melancholy and sad. Being older, you understand both worlds. Unfortunately, I became the adult."

This is an excerpt from a feature that originally appeared in Kirkus Reviews.

Comfort Books

In times of grief and sorrow, we turn to comfort food. Chicken soup, hot chocolate, chamomile tea, ice cream. But how do we feed our souls? With comfort books.

Now is the time to pull out your family's favorite books: Charlotte's Web, The Little Prince, Winnie the Pooh, The Wind in the Willows. Their association with happier days comforts us during this time of distress. These are books the entire family--including teenagers--can gather together to read and reread.

Remember that your children's responses will vary, depending on their age and how much they are able to process of the events in Newtown last Friday. The school psychologist at the Bank Street School for Children, Dr. Anne Santa, encourages parents and teachers to reassure children that home and school are two of the safest places they can be. Hold your youngest on your lap and sit close together on the couch: make new memories with good books. 

A few recent favorites include Masterpiece by Elise Broach, which features a friendship that approaches Wilbur and Charlotte's. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Starry River of the Sky, both by Grace Lin, weave together a quest tale with Chinese folklore, lushly illustrated. Callie's close friendship with a grandfather no one else seems to understand lies at the core of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly; the author also wrote Return to the Willows, a "sequel" to The Wind in the Willows.

Don't be surprised if your child asks for The Tale of Despereaux and Bridge to Terabithia--two novels that help combat fear and process loss from a safe distance. A mouse who bravely entered the dungeon and emerged triumphant, and a boy who honors his friend who has died give us hope. Let your children choose what they wish to read, and then be there to listen, to answer their questions and to hold them close.

This article first appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.

The Pleasures of Rereading

One of the things I like best about Rebecca Stead’s novel When You Reach Me is the way the heroine, Mira, loves A Wrinkle in Time. The way she carries it around with her wherever she goes, and the way the book is like an old friend to her. It made me think about the pleasures of rereading books and why we do it. If we’ve already read the book, and we know what’s going to happen, why bother reading it again? It’s precisely because we do know what’s going to happen that we bother. We return to certain books again and again because we know they are reliable and dependable and will always be there for us, and events will unfold just the way we remembered them. Or if we’re really lucky, they begin to mean different things to us at different times—just like longtime friends do. The longer we know them, the more we discover. The bond deepens.

I do not know how many times I have read The Little Prince, but each time he has come through for me. When I was small, he was a traveler in a great adventure who came home, where he was happiest of all. As I grew older, he was the hero in a love story—between the Little Prince and his rose, beloved to him, unique in all the world because of his care for and devotion to his rose. Then the subplot between the Little Prince and the fox came to the fore, as I began to consider what the word “tame” meant in the context of their connection, and the complexity and trust involved. More recently, it has had a tinge of all these things, but mostly it has helped me see the importance of being at home where you are.

Rereading also teaches us to be better writers. A famous story goes that when someone once asked Ernest Hemingway how to become a writer, his advice was, “Read Anna Karenina. Read Anna Karenina. Read Anna Karenina.” Just as good painters often begin by imitating the masters, reading the masters can help us improve as writers.

Finally, it's my belief that reading and rereading makes us better people. Books allow us to enter other worlds. They offer us other points of view, help us to see another side—often of ourselves.