An extended allegory that drew me in more as it went along. I found the end very affecting, but the travel through the various asteroids was a little laboured, I thought. I can see why this became a classic, being published when it was, but I don't know. I feel the themes - including, for instance, how adults have lost the imagination and sense of wonder they had as children - to be well-worn ground in my own reading history and also... not quite true? Perhaps old Antoine had a lot of extremely tedious peers at time of writing, but I tend to think my own imagination is much more exercised and rich as an adult than it ever was when I was a kid. (After all, it's had decades of use. Practise should have improved it!)