Everyone who knows the story will recognize the little golden-haired boy from a distant asteroid, towed by a flock of wild birds and stopping at one planet after another until he lands on Earth, his small red heart under a glass globe back home among the stars.

Here in the heart of Quezon City, in a somewhat small, gravelly area called Street Kohi, grownups browsed local artisanal shops, stalls, and installations inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s beloved story “The Little Prince.” A white canopy under dappled light covered the center of the area spread with patches of fake grass where weekenders sat talking with friends or drinking iced coffee. Strings of fairy lights blinked overhead. You might have heard the soundtrack from the book’s 2015 film adaptation playing in the background. A little beyond the entrance registration booth was a hand poke tattoo station, and past that, in a closed, homey room in a corner of the lot, the art exhibit, the cafe, and the book-signing area shared space.

The two-day festival began with ribbon-cutting at 10 a.m. on Feb. 1, and in the course of the weekend, it featured ceramic and watercolor painting workshops, book readings, book signings by local illustrators and translators, and musical storytelling based on “The Little Prince.” The event area, small and intimate, bustled with light chatter over a myriad of trinkets shaped as red roses, foxes, or the little prince himself in his distinct green clothes.

Memories of childhood

The same Street Kohi hosted last October a Studio Ghibli-themed festival that drew some 3,000 attendees who celebrated the works of the beloved Japanese animation studio. With the event’s success, the organizers decided to hold similar festivals annually under different themes—all meant to summon memories (and dreams) of childhood. This year, they dedicated it to the classic French novella.

“It’s also timely because there will be an anniversary festival for Le Petit Prince this June to commemorate its 600th translation, along with the author Antoine’s anniversary,” said Giel Aragon, one of the event’s organizers along with The Social Club Manila and Panganay Productions. “This festival is really just a teaser for that bigger event.”

The Switzerland-based Jean-Marc Probst Foundation pour le Petit Prince served as sponsor for the “teaser” festival, while Morag Design and Fabrication lent the red plane in the exhibit, displayed with Bernardo Braga Oronos Jr.’s oil paintings “The Lamplighter and the Thousand Four Hundred Forty Sunsets” and “The King’s Throne of Reasonables and Favorables.” Aragon himself led the rest of the set design, together with ZÈLO Design & Build. The event was also held in partnership with the Quezon City Tourism Department, supported by the local government “because Mayor Joy [Belmonte] is a fan of the event.”

“We were invited to host at big malls, but I decided not to push through because it would be too commercialized,” Aragon said, “I’m trying to take care of the events that we’re able to build here to become more community-based.”

The festival’s curated marketplace comprised local merchants who sell The Little Prince-inspired items, ranging from charms and plushies to handmade ceramic mugs and scented candles. Most of the handmade products were limited pieces, and sold out quickly at the festival.

“We had a variant of our scented candles that were molded into red roses, but they’ve all been bought,” Susan de Guzman and Giselle Kasilag of Arts & Letters Manila told CoverStory. “It’ll take a while to replenish since they’re handmade, but we still have these fox candles in stock.”

The small shop’s catalogue includes printed shirts, umbrellas, mugs, and notebooks, most incorporating public domain artwork, “but we put our own little twist to them,” said De Guzman.

For all age groups

Many of the attendees were parents and their children or working adults. Some brought their well-dressed pooches. But most of the crowd were expectedly students meeting up on their weekend break.

“We’re waiting for the watercolor event,” said Eleiyah, 17, who came with her friends Marielle and Welzy, along with Reinlois, 23, who once served as their student-teacher in English and has since graduated college.

“This place is beautiful. We’ll be waiting for the lantern-lighting later,” Reinlois said. “As a fan of the book, you don’t often see an event centered on The Little Prince.”

The group brought with them their Le Petit Prince-inspired Hirono Pop Mart figurines “to meet them up,” and were discussing quite intently as they sat in a circle around their goods on the fake grass—the geographer with a pile of books on his head, the lamplighter carrying his lighting pole, and the little prince with the sleeping fox wrapped around his head.

“I also came because I wanted to include this event in the feature page of our newspaper,” said Reinlois, who now works as a “floating” teacher and adviser for the student publication of a private school in Bulacan. “I have a lot of students who have these [figurines], so we might be able to contextualize it that way.”

He taught the three students’ Grade 10 English class two years ago when he was still studying, and had drawn upon “The Little Prince” to give a lesson on sensory image.

“The choice of words in ‘The Little Prince’ is easy to digest, not just for children but for anyone, for all age groups,” Reinlois said, adding that the work is “one of those books that are easy to translate.”

“There are already so many translations of the book. It really means it connects readers easily,” he said, describing it as “all-embracing.”

‘Insider’s perspective’

Midday on Feb. 2, nearly every merchant was attending to shoppers looking through the items. Many bought copies of the book’s translations in Ilokano, Chavacano, and Filipino, as well as its komiks version, as a book-signing by the translators and illustrators themselves would take place that afternoon.

“I learned that this is the second year that Street Kohi held a festival. I had seen [the Ghibli Fest] in the news back then, but I wasn’t able to attend,” said Faye Melegrito, co-translator along with Cles Rambaud of the book’s Ilokano version “Ti Bassit a Prinsipe,” first launched in 2023, and recognized as the Best Translated Book in Ilokano at the 42nd National Book Awards. Melegrito’s daughter, Luce, was partly involved with the design of the “Ti Bassit a Prinsipe” cover, made by Jimwell Salvador. She provided the abel pattern on the little prince’s scarf, “so that it’s easier to identify as Ilokano, out of all the artworks out there made of The Little Prince.”

The other books on display included the Chavacano version “El Diutay Principe” by Jerome Herrera, the original “Ang Munting Prinsipe” Filipino translation by Lilia F. Antonio, as well as its komiks version illustrated by Richard Red Elli. In one corner of the small room next to the exhibit, Melegrito, Antonio, Elli, and Southern Voices Printing Press publisher Pia Perez signed copy after copy for a line of attendees, with some requesting photo ops with them, too.

“I only got here today,” Antonio, the first translator of the Filipino version of the book published back in 1969, told CoverStory excitedly. “But I really enjoy it. Isn’t it great?”

The recently-published komiks version of her translation “Ang Munting Prinsipe,” illustrated by Elli, sold quite well. Perez had provided the storyboards for the concept, with Elli working on the project for around a year and a half—“quite a while”—due to his day job.

“Originally, it was supposed to be anime-style, like a manga,” Elli said. “But it wasn’t my forte, because I’m more on the cartoon side. I did try to make it more like that, but in the end, it still turned out more cartoonish.”

He described his experience as “very surreal,” as he signed copies of his komiks starting Sunday afternoon and throughout the evening.

“It’s fun. It really feels like a festival,” Melegrito said of the event. She was not able to attend Street Kohi’s festival last year, but for this year, she, as well as other translators, particularly from Southern Voices, had been invited by the café to participate. “And we’re involved not just from an outsider’s perspective but also from an insider’s, since we’re part of ‘The Little Prince’ translations.”

“There are a lot of other translations out there, such as the Waray version by Jerry Gracio, Hiligaynon by Stephen Matti, and Bicolano by Fr. Wilmer Tria,” Melegrito added. “They have different publishers. There are some others, but I haven’t been able to meet them in book events.”

Sense of wonder

The festival ended with a burst of energy, followed by a little ceremony. A short interactive musical adaptation by Make Believe Productions gave a dynamic and charming portrayal of the story—with Pipo Lina’s “Starlight” from “The Little Prince Musical” sung to swaying phone flashlights at the very end—before the attendees were invited to collect their lanterns and paint these as they liked.

“I notice that sense of wonder within the community,” Reinlois said. “It’s really what we came here for.”

Although there will be the big anniversary event in June, which anticipates participation from the French Embassy, this “teaser” festival felt both like a prelude and a complete story in itself.

Said Aragon: “’The Little Prince’ is very memorable because of the lessons, like how he had to run away because he was too young to understand how he was falling in love with the rose. He went from planet to planet, meeting all kinds of characters, like the fox and the pilot, only to find that what his rose was doing is really only just born out of love, too…There’s a lot of lessons, and it’s very deep. And it’s our childhood memory.”

On the fake grass under the glowing fairy lights, as the sun was setting, the grownups sat with brush in hand, painting roses, constellations of stars, and a house, or writing their names, their own personal expressions, or quotes from the book. Later they hung around, lighted lanterns up in strings like rows of small planets—or like little asteroids each with 44 sunsets—all inspired by the boy who loves a single blossom in all the millions and millions of stars.

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