Chapter 306: The Little Prince Sells Big in North America, Parents' Reflections! (Patreon)

Two weeks later, North America. New York's air already carried a hint of late autumn's chill. Midtown Manhattan, Fifth Avenue.

In the window of a chain bookstore, a stack of books with pale blue covers sat in the most prominent spot. On the cover, a small figure stood atop a tiny planet, cloak billowing in the wind. The English title was printed in the upper right corner — The Little Prince.

Author: Tsushima Kagami

Illustrations: Sawamura Sayuri

Store manager Allen Carter stood by the window, hands in his pockets, watching the pedestrians passing on the street. It was an ordinary Tuesday morning. But for him, today wasn't ordinary at all.

"Allen, the first shipment's in." Behind him came the voice of clerk Emily, tinged with excitement.

Allen turned and saw Emily pushing a cart stacked with a dozen or so cardboard boxes.

"How many copies?"

"Five hundred. The warehouse says if they sell well, they can send three hundred more this afternoon."

Allen nodded, walked over, opened one of the boxes, and pulled out a sample copy. The Little Prince on the cover gazed quietly back at him. He opened the first page, glanced at the copyright page, then flipped to the text.

"I ask children to forgive me for dedicating this book to a grown-up…" He read a couple of lines, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.

"Interesting."

"What's interesting?" Emily leaned in.

"This opening." Allen handed her the book. "Most children's books just dedicate themselves straight to kids. This guy apologizes to them first."

Emily took it, skimmed a few lines, and laughed.

"It really is different."

"Mr. Tsushima has always been different," Allen said, pushing the cart further into the store. "Remember Snow Country?"

"Of course. The whole book club was talking about it back then."

"Right," Allen said, walking on. "That book's readers were mostly serious literary adults, but this one…"

He stopped the cart at the entrance to the children's section and looked around. The shelves held Peter Rabbit, Winnie-the-Pooh, Pippi Longstocking from Sweden, Paddington Bear from England. And original Japanese fairy tales? Almost nonexistent.

"This time, the target readers are children, but the ones actually paying are the parents." Allen crouched down and began unpacking the boxes onto the shelves. "And a lot of those parents have probably read Snow Country, or at least heard the name Tsushima Kagami."

"So that's why Kodansha's tagline is written the way it is?" Emily crouched down to help too, setting a stack of books on the shelf.

'A sales miracle in Japan' — the line was printed on the English promotional poster, followed by a set of figures.

First print run: one hundred thousand copies. Nearly seventy thousand ordered on release day alone.

Two straight weeks at the top of Japan's book sales chart.

Number one on Amazon Japan's children's literature category.

"Whoa, are these numbers real?" Emily stared at the figures on the poster, hardly believing them.

"A company as big as Kodansha wouldn't fake numbers, would they." Allen set the last book in place and stood up. "And I heard it's really selling well over there — the internet's flooded with reviews."

He stepped back and looked over the freshly stocked shelf.

"There we go." Allen brushed the dust off his hands. "Now we just wait for opening."

At ten a.m., the store opened right on time.

Among the first customers was a woman in her early thirties, carrying a girl of about two. She wore a camel-colored coat, her long brown hair loose over her shoulders, and held a note in her hand.

"Excuse me." She walked up to the register. "Do you have a book called… The Little Prince?"

The cashier glanced up, smiled, and pointed toward the children's section.

"Over there. Just came in."

She carried her daughter over and spotted the row of pale blue covers at once. She crouched down, picked one up, and flipped through a few pages. The little girl leaned out from her arms, saw the Little Prince on the cover, and reached out a small hand to touch it.

"This one."

The woman opened the first page and read it softly to her daughter.

"I ask children to forgive me for dedicating this book to a grown-up…"

When she finished the line, she paused, caught off guard. Not just a fairy tale for children, but for grown-ups too?

The little girl couldn't understand the words, of course, but the illustration caught her eye. It showed the Little Prince standing at the edge of his planet, a sky full of stars behind him. The girl poked at the picture with her finger, making a garbled little sound.

"Do you like it?" the woman asked, smiling down at her.

Naturally the girl couldn't answer, just kept staring at the picture. The woman smiled, stood, and carried the book to the register.

"Just this one."

After paying, she slipped the book into her bag and carried her daughter out of the store. The wind outside was a little cold, so she tugged her daughter's hat down and headed toward the subway station.

Her name was Megan, thirty-one years old, living in Brooklyn, a stay-at-home mother. Her daughter Emily was two, at the age when everything is fascinating. Megan had been meaning to use her free time to start gathering some children's books for her. She didn't know much about children's literature, though she was fond of reading classic novels herself.

But a while back, a friend of hers who worked as a bookstore clerk had recommended The Little Prince to her. At the time, every bookstore chain partnered with Kodansha was already promoting the book ahead of release. Her friend was no exception, and since Megan hadn't decided what to buy, she'd simply recommended this fairy tale from Japan. It was billed as some kind of short children's-literature novel. But Megan figured it would be good even just for teaching new vocabulary down the road.

When recommending it, her friend had even shown her a promotional ad from Japan itself. Below it was a photo of a child lying on a rug, reading. Clutched tightly in the child's hands was that same pale blue book. Megan had only made a mental note of it at the time.

But later, browsing online, she noticed more and more people posting about it. Some said they were buying it for their kids, others said they were buying it for themselves. She'd even come across a long essay titled 'We Grown-ups Have All Forgotten We Were Once Children.' The essay moved her, and she decided to check the bookstore.

Of course, this stay-at-home mother, still living in the year 2000, had no idea what paid traffic promotion was, or what a native ad even meant.

Meanwhile, in New Haven, Connecticut.

In an independent bookstore near Yale University, a group of college students sat clustered around a small round table. A copy of The Little Prince lay open on the table, the four of them taking turns leafing through it.

"This is so not Tsushima Kagami." A guy in a baseball cap flipped through the pages, his tone disbelieving. "Everything he wrote before — Snow Country, No Longer Human — was so heavy. How is this one so… gentle?"

"Didn't you say you'd never read his books?" The girl next to him glanced at him.

"I haven't, but I've heard my professor talk about him." Baseball Cap spread his hands. "In our comp lit class, the professor spent a whole week on Tsushima Kagami. Said he's one of the best East Asian writers at depicting loneliness."

"So you think he can't write children's literature?"

"That's not what I mean, I'm saying…" Baseball Cap scratched his head. "It's just… the contrast is a bit much. It's like asking Stephen King to write a picture book for three-year-olds. Doesn't that feel off to you?"

"But Stephen King has written books with a child protagonist." Across the table, a girl with glasses pushed them up and said slowly, "He wrote a book called The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, about a nine-year-old girl."

Baseball Cap:

"…"

"But that's a horror novel, not a fairy tale picture book or children's literature."

Glasses Girl smiled, shrugged, and didn't answer him further. Instead she picked up The Little Prince and turned to a page.

"And honestly, I think there's always been a kind of… innocence in Tsushima Kagami's earlier work."

"God! You're calling No Longer Human innocent?" Baseball Cap's eyes went wide.

"I don't mean the content is innocent, I mean his perspective is." Glasses Girl set the book down. "He writes about 'abnormal' people, lonely people, lost people, people cast out by society. At its core, he's asking one question: 'What's the right way for a person to live?'"

"What does that have to do with innocence?"

"Because only an innocent person would believe that question has an answer." Glasses Girl went on. "A truly worldly person gave up looking for that answer long ago. To them, living is just living — there's no right or wrong to it."

Baseball Cap opened his mouth, but for a moment couldn't find anything to say.

The fourth student, an Asian girl with her hair in a ponytail who'd been silent the whole time, finally spoke up.

"Honestly, I don't think this book was written for children."

The other three turned to look at her.

"How do you mean?" Glasses Girl asked.

"Kids don't need the concept of 'taming.'" Ponytail said. "They already live inside 'taming.' They tame their parents, and their parents tame them. They tame their toys, and their toys tame them. But adults are different. Adults have forgotten how to tame, and how to be tamed. Adults think they're independent, that they don't rely on anyone — that working hard, earning money, and paying off loans is enough. But this book is reminding adults…"

She paused, looking at the pale blue book on the table.

"The essence of relationships between people is mutual taming."

The little round table went quiet for a few seconds. Baseball Cap was the first to break the silence.

"That makes a lot of sense, but why does it sound a little sad?"

"It is sad, isn't it?" Ponytail said. "The word 'taming' itself carries sadness. Because once you tame something, you have a weakness, and you're afraid of losing it."

"Ugh, stop, now I'm thinking about the kitten I had as a kid."

"But that's not exactly what the book says, is it?" Glasses Girl flipped to another page. "The fox says, 'You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose…'"

"Right, so you're responsible." Ponytail nodded. "Responsibility is a kind of burden too. But adults are afraid of burdens, so they don't want to tame anything."

Baseball Cap leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling.

"I was just going to flip through it casually, but now you guys have me wanting to actually read the whole thing."

"Then read it." Glasses Girl pushed the book toward him. "Buy a copy."

"I've already bought way too many books this semester." Baseball Cap shook his head. "I haven't even finished the professor's reading list."

"Then I'll lend you mine," Ponytail said. "I already finished it."

Baseball Cap blinked, then laughed.

"All right, don't mind if I do."

He picked the book up off the table and slid it into his backpack.

The first-day North American sales figures were compiled and sent to Kodansha's Tokyo headquarters that same evening.

Watanabe Junichi sat in his office, staring at the spreadsheet on his screen. His expression shifted from anticipation to surprise, and finally into something close to disbelieving excitement. He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed a number.

"Hello, Mr. Kobayashi?"

Kobayashi Tomoaki's voice came through, sounding a little tired.

"Director Watanabe, it's late. What's going on?"

"The North American first-day numbers are in."

Kobayashi's voice snapped alert.

"How much?"

"The exact figures are still being compiled, but the preliminary numbers show…" Watanabe paused, as if double-checking he hadn't misread it. "First-day sales in the North American market have already crossed close to eighty thousand copies."

There was a moment of silence on the other end.

"Are you sure?" Kobayashi's voice held a note of surprise.

"I'm sure. It's an email that just came in from our North American colleagues," Watanabe said. "And this is only day one. By the time the first-week numbers come in, we could see an even bigger jump. Looks like Mr. Tsushima's going to make The New York Times this time too."

Kobayashi fell silent for a few more seconds, then let out a soft laugh.

"That guy Kagami… how many more times is he going to surprise us?"

Watanabe laughed along with him.

"Honestly, when I first got involved with this project, I was genuinely worried. Children's literature does better in the North American market than in Japan, but the competition there is fierce too. The classics already own most of the market share. A new work breaking through isn't easy."

"But Mr. Tsushima's name already carries some recognition in North America," Kobayashi said.

"Right, and this time there's an unexpected boost too," Watanabe said. "When bookstores in North America promote it, a lot of them emphasize 'this is a story about communication' rather than 'this is a children's book.'"

"About communication?"

"Yes. I looked at several bookstore promo copies, and most of them emphasize that the book explores 'the gap between adults and children, and how to relearn how to understand each other.' That's a clever angle, because it expands the target audience from children to parents, even to every adult."

Kobayashi gave a thoughtful hum.

"So the people buying this book aren't just buying it for their kids — a lot of them are buying it for themselves."

"Exactly. Just like at home — kids, adults, even students. And from the current numbers, the proportion of adult buyers might be even higher than expected."

"So are you planning to tell Kagami yourself tomorrow, or do you want me to pass it along?" Kobayashi laughed into the phone.

"Since it's a book published by Kodansha, of course I'll tell him myself. I only called you, Editor-in-Chief Kobayashi, because it's so late and I just wanted to share this with someone." Watanabe laughed heartily over the phone. "You owe me a meal next time, you know."

"Absolutely, next time!"

The two chatted a little longer before Watanabe hung up and leaned back in his chair. Outside the window lay Tokyo's night skyline, the lights of the skyscrapers merging into a sea of light.

Meanwhile, this 'Little Prince phenomenon' was quietly spreading to every corner of the North American continent.

In the first week of release, just as Watanabe had predicted—

The Little Prince, with cumulative sales surpassing three hundred and fifty thousand copies, climbed to number one on The New York Times bestseller list. The achievement sent shockwaves through the entire publishing industry.

But what truly turned The Little Prince from a "bestseller" into a "social phenomenon" wasn't the cold sales figures — it was an article posted online that went on to sweep across the entire internet.

On North American social media, discussion of The Little Prince exploded completely over the first weekend after release. On AOL, the largest portal site in America, a post with over a million views moved readers across North America deeply, and major media outlets went on to quote and repost it.

The post opened by quoting a conversation between 'I' and the Little Prince. In it, 'I' and the Little Prince argue over whether the thorns on flowers serve any purpose. The Little Prince put it this way.

[For millions of years flowers have gone on making thorns, and for millions of years sheep have gone right on eating them anyway. Isn't it serious business, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to grow thorns that are good for nothing? Isn't the war between the sheep and the flowers important? Isn't it more serious, more important, than the fat, red-faced gentleman's accounts? And if I happen to know a flower that exists nowhere but on my planet, one of a kind in the whole universe, and a little sheep could wipe it out in a single bite one morning, without even realizing what he was doing — isn't that important too?]

[If someone loves a flower of which just one single example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that's enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can tell himself, 'My flower is up there somewhere...' But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it's as if all the stars suddenly went out! Doesn't that matter either?!]

Having said this, the Little Prince suddenly burst into tears.

And 'I' realized the two of us hadn't even been arguing about the same thing. 'I' had been frantically debating the necessity and logic of a flower's thorns — in 'my' adult world, there was no romance, no sense of beauty, only dry reason and cold fact. The Little Prince, meanwhile, saw the matter through feeling, through romance. Whether the thorns meant anything, whether they could keep the sheep away — none of that mattered. What he cared about was the thing itself.

This is the greatest gulf between adults and children. A child's innocence is like the thorns on a rose — adults see it as childish, immature, unnecessary. But in a child's eyes, it's everything!

"The last full conversation I had with my child was two weeks before he passed away."

He was lying in his hospital bed, looking at the sky outside, when he suddenly asked me.

"Dad, why do roses have thorns?"

I froze, not knowing how to answer.

I said. "To protect themselves, so animals don't eat them."

He shook his head.

I said. "So people can't pick them so easily?"

He shook his head again.

I said. "Then you tell me — why do roses have thorns?"

He looked at me and said.

"Because flowers just like having thorns. The thorns are part of the flower."

I didn't understand.

"But thorns prick people. Wouldn't the flower be better off without them?"

He started to get frustrated, his voice rising a little.

"But with the thorns, it's that flower!"

I thought he was just being unreasonable, so I dropped the subject. Looking back now, I missed my last chance to understand him.

My child was eight years old, a leukemia patient. From diagnosis to the end, fourteen months passed. In those fourteen months, I poured everything I had into loving him. I quit my job, sold my car, and stayed by his side at the hospital every day. I thought that was love.

I bought him the best toys, hired the best doctors, used the most expensive medicine. I thought that was love.

I made every decision for him — what to eat, what to wear, what to read, when to sleep. I thought that was love.

But he wasn't happy. He rarely smiled. Most of the time he just lay there quietly, looking out the window. I didn't know what he was looking at, or what he was thinking. I didn't even know what he wanted. I thought all he wanted was to survive. But in the moment he left, it suddenly hit me — I had never once asked him what else, besides surviving, he wanted.

Last week, a mother in a group chat for parents of sick children recommended a book called The Little Prince. She said it was a special book and that I had to read it. At first I refused. My child was gone; I had no interest in reading anything. But she mailed the book to my house anyway, with a note attached.

"This isn't for the child. It's for you."

Last night, I opened the book. I came across the story of a Turkish astronomer. The astronomer discovered an asteroid while wearing traditional dress, but no one believed him. Later, he put on a proper suit and presented it again — and this time everyone believed him. At first I found the story funny. But as I kept laughing, the laughter died in my throat.

Because I thought of my child. He'd told me, in his own way, that roses have thorns because flowers just like having thorns. I hadn't believed him. If he'd told me the same thing in my way, I'd have believed it. But he couldn't speak my way. He was a child. He didn't know the language of adults.

Then I read about the rose that grew on the Little Prince's planet. She was beautiful, but proud, vain, and difficult. She said she feared drafts, insects, tigers. The Little Prince took her seriously and covered her with a glass globe. But later he realized the flower had only been saying things that "didn't need to be taken seriously." The Little Prince was confused. He didn't know what to do.

Reading that part, I suddenly thought of my own child. Was he confused too? The things he said, I never took seriously. He said roses have thorns because flowers like thorns, and I didn't take it seriously. He said the clouds outside looked like an elephant, and I didn't take it seriously. I treated everything he said as something that didn't need to be taken seriously. But to him, every one of those things was true. They were the most important things in his world.

Just like what the fox says later in the book.

"What is essential is invisible to the eye."

My eyes could only see that he was sick, that he needed treatment, nutrition, survival. My eyes couldn't see what he actually needed. All he needed was to be understood.

Just like the original conversation between the Little Prince and the geographer.

["I also have a flower."

"We do not record flowers," said the geographer.

"Why not? Flowers are the most beautiful things there are!"

"Because flowers are ephemeral."

"What does 'ephemeral' mean?"

"Geography books," said the geographer, "are the most serious books there are. They never go out of date. It's very rare for a mountain to shift position. It's very rare for an ocean to run dry. We write of eternal things."

"But an extinct volcano can wake up again," the Little Prince interrupted.

"What does 'ephemeral' mean?"

"Whether volcanoes are extinct or awake makes no difference to us," said the geographer. "What matters to us is the mountain. Mountains don't change position."

"But what does 'ephemeral' mean?" the Little Prince asked again, since once he'd asked a question, he never let it go.

"It means: 'in danger of soon disappearing.'"

"Is my flower in danger of soon disappearing?"

"Certainly."]

My child was that fleeting flower. His life was so short.

But I'm not a geographer. I'm not someone who only records eternal things. I'm his father. I should have recorded everything about him. Even if he was fleeting. No — precisely because he was fleeting, I should have cherished every second of his existence all the more.

But I didn't. I spent so much time worrying about his future. Worrying whether he could be cured, whether he'd go to school someday, whether he'd get bullied. I spent so much time on 'the future.' But hardly any time on 'now.' He was right in front of me, and I looked into his eyes, but my mind was on tomorrow, the day after, next year, the year after that.

I lost 'now.'

Last night, after finishing The Little Prince, I closed the book and set it on his pillow. I spoke to the pillow.

"I'm sorry."

I'm sorry I never understood what you meant about the rose's thorns. I'm sorry I treated everything you said as something not worth taking seriously. I'm sorry I spent so much time worrying about your future and forgot to be with you in the present. I'm sorry I was a father who believed the geographer. I only believed in eternal things. And forgot that love itself is fleeting. Precisely because it disappears, it's precious.

But even at the moment he left, I still felt there was a gulf between us I couldn't cross. I couldn't understand what he wanted; all I could do was love him with everything I had. But I never once considered whether he needed that love, or whether it suffocated him. Even in his final moments, the love I gave him didn't seem to make him very happy.

After finishing The Little Prince, after reading these words, I finally understood. My little prince — all he ever wanted was for me to understand that 'the rose having thorns is my entire world.'

The essay 'My Little Prince,' first posted on AOL, was liked and shared massively online before being reposted back to Yahoo Japan. It quickly caught fire across major literary communities, briefly topping the trending charts.

[My little prince — all he ever wanted was for me to understand that 'the rose having thorns is my entire world.']

This closing line from the anonymous father landed like a hammer blow on the hearts of every young parent at odds with their own child. Like the essay's author, they too had struggled to understand why communicating with their own children felt so impossible. Even though they were the closest blood relatives, together every day, they often felt like strangers from two different worlds, unable to understand each other.

Every generation, every family, kept replaying the same familial rift. It was true across the ocean in America, and it was just as true in Japan.

Only after reading this post, and then poring carefully over Mr. Tsushima's The Little Prince, did a wave of parents who'd already wanted to improve their relationships with their children finally start to confront the differences between their own way of thinking and their children's.

A child's world is far cleaner and purer than an adult's. Precisely because it's so uncomplicated, anyone willing can slip into it quickly. But the fast pace of modern life, the anxiety and pressure it brings, has left most adults with no spare energy to dig deeply into their children's inner worlds. With no time to understand and no energy to invest in the relationship, distance naturally grows. And once that distance forms, they still lack the time and energy to break through it, unwilling to spend the thought and effort considering their children's inner feelings. So friction between parents and children keeps mounting, until it can no longer be reconciled, and they become the most familiar of strangers.

This was also one of the reasons Japan later became a country with such severe declining birth rates and an aging population. This generation, born in the eighties and nineties, had never had smooth relationships with their parents growing up. As adults, all kinds of pressures piled on, and combined with a lack of feeling for children and no confidence in raising them well, along with various psychological wounds from childhood, they ultimately chose not to marry or have children, resigning themselves to growing old alone. This group later came to be known worldwide as the 'Heisei washouts.'

And now, the answer to the problem of parent-child upbringing lay hidden inside The Little Prince.

Young parents didn't want their own future with their children to end in the same lifelong regret as the author of 'My Little Prince' and his son. So, through word of mouth, more and more families flocked to bookstores to buy The Little Prince, and parents began poring over it the moment they got off work.