Madame Sanborn’s AP French class studied the classic Antoine de Saint-Exupéry novella Le Petit Prince in the fall. As part of their final assessment, they entered the ‘Conversation with The Little Prince’ writing contest sponsored by UNESCO, the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Foundation, Le Labo des Histoires, and #LearningPlanet to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the author’s birth. While it appears to be a children’s book, The Little Prince is quite philosophical with perpetually relevant observations about life and human nature. 

The contest asked that the submissions depict the conversation between The Little Prince and a young girl during lockdown/isolation due to COVID-19. They were to recount their exchanges and describe emotions, shared hopes, or even the common values of humanity which are part of the continuity of a better, happy, creative, and sustainable world. Submissions were accepted in the six official languages of UNESCO (English, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French and Russian).

They received 2,428 submissions, in six languages, from 60+ countries! Ten finalists were selected in each of the six languages. Congratulations to DeDee Hoffman ‘21 and Grace Sanborn ‘21 who were both English language finalists!!! You can read their conversations with The Little Prince below. Because Grace’s submission included an illustration, it will be included in a virtual exposition.