星の王子さま

Decent beginner book (but slightly overrated)

I feel like i´m one of the few who have actually never heard of this book, so i may offer a bit of a unique perspective. I thought the book content-wise was alright. Pretty standard children flare with a few themes about imagination and so on. Pretty one-sided views as well, but since this is (hopefully) aimed at children, i´ll let it slide. I never quite got into any of the characters if i´m being honest. I thought the youth of the narrator at the very start of the book was actually the most interesting part, which unfortunately was quickly left behind in favor of the actual little prince.

As far as language goes, there are some weird parts which i assume came to be because of its age, the fantasy aspect and the target audience. That said, there is lots of hiragana and only a few kanji to worry about. Personally, i would have liked more kanji + furigana more but whatever. The sentences can be simple to moderately difficult in length and in grammar, but managable all things considered. I very much liked that the book is relatively short and yet contains so many small chapters, which makes it easy to read on a regular basis (of motivation).

Overall, i thought this was a decent read. Don´t know exactly why this is considered to be THE first book to read for new language learners (of all languages), but it´s not a bad pick either.