The Tale of Despereaux is really 3 stories in one that all intertwine around one central character, the Princess Pea, at the end. It is the story of Despereaux Tilling, an uncommonly small mouse who was born with his eyes open and who has uncommonly large ears and who falls in love with the Princess Pea; it is the story of the rat Chiaroscuro, who discovers the joys of light even though his place should be in the dungeon and learns a great hatred for and wishes for revenge on the Princess Pea; and it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted servant girl whose greatest wish in the world is to be just like the Princess Pea.

I was intrigued by this book after a friend recommended DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which is a beautiful cathartic tale of love and loss. The Tale of Despereaux just doesn't seem to have the same impact on me. Ultimately, it is a story of forgiveness and redemption, but it all seemed a little too mannered and forced for my taste. Perhaps in the right hands, this story would be perfect, but I found it lacking in any real substance. It's not a bad tale, but not perfect. ( )

A cute idea that's poorly executed. The plot was decent, but not great. The character descriptions were mediocre. I don't know what I was expecting, but this book definitely fell far short of expectations. Big disappointment. Talking mice tend to be pretty awesome (Redwall, anyone?) but not so in this book's case. Best for much younger children, I suppose. ( )

This is a darling book and I found myself thinking about the characters as I went about my day. They are so well-developed and endearing. I look forward to reading it to a child one day to see if they have the same reaction. I found that I was so touch by the characters that I was sad when the story ended because I missed them. I think this would be a great book to read to a classroom over the course of a month or so. And the illustrations are beautiful. ( )

Have you ever sent yourself on a quest? Or have you escaped from the dungeon just to go back in again? Well, Despereaux has. He was sent to the dungeon for not behaving in ways of a mouse and for falling in love with the princess. Turning the time back, Roscuro the rat accidentally fell into the queen’s soup and killed her and ever since he’s been very angry, wanting revenge. Then this comes together. Roscuro got the princess into the dungeon. This is when Despereaux sent himself on a quest. Can Despereaux make it? Read the book to find out. ( )

DiCamillo, K., & Ering, T. B. (2006). The tale of Despereaux: Being the story of a mouse, a princess, some soup, and a spool of thread. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

DiCamillo takes the emotion she masterfully used in Because of Winn-Dixie and Tiger Rising, and transfers it to an adventure for a younger audience. Using a “dear reader” narrative approach, DiCamillo works to connect the reader to the sympathetic characters in her tale. Despereaux, a small mouse with a big heart falls in love with a human princess and must descend into the castle’s dungeons to save her from a misguided servant girl and a devious rat. Although DiCamillo’s narrative is split into separate detailed descriptions of each of the story’s major characters, she communicates a story of interconnectedness, cause-and-effect, and tragic fate. Ering’s illustrations depict well DiCamillo’s rich descriptions, offering readers a visual springboard for their imaginations.

A slightly entertaining novel about a mouse, named Despereaux, and his unique view of the world from a mouse.

By slightly I refer to the parts where the author drifts from the comfortable narration and breaks from the story to address the reader. Where one author might describe a scene vividly in a way that we would hold dear and truly captivate a person, the author decides to deviate from narration and explain to the reader in a simple matter what transpired.

Overall the story isn't bad. It's not light and fluffy for every reader as it does have dark moments but that isn't a bad thing. The character development is simple enough for a younger reader to follow but the general writing style is also perhaps too simple for a younger read to bother with.

It's something to read if you have nothing better, but if you do by all means read that. ( )

The Tale of Despereaux was a rather dark but sweet tale of three interesting characters, a mouse, a rat, and a lonely girl. Desperaux the mouse lives is not your normal mouse, he doesn't cower in the face of danger and has a hunger for knowlege. Roscuro is also a curious soul who get's himself into a bit of trouble involving some soup. He is banished to the dark world of Ratdome and see's little hope for his future. Miggery Sow also sees her life as nothing more than that of a lowley servant girl but dreams of being a beautiful princess. When all three colide they change eachother's lives for good. Great book for an older classroom as it is a bit dark.

My mother said this was cute and left it in my apartment, so I'm reading it instead of trying to be in the middle of two Dick Francis novels at one time. And I like mice! ( )

Desperaux is a book about misfits. Each character stands out for some reason, and some are pathetic. Desperaux is a small mouse with big ears who doesn't do regular mouse things. Roscuro is a rat who is drawn to the light. Muggery Sow sees herself as a princess, but she is a poor dimwitted peasant, the king makes horrible laws that don't make sense, and Princess Pea has compassion for rodents. But each of these characters have redeeming values that make this a wonderful book. Desperaux is small, but valientlly rescues his love in the face of rats and a dark and perilous dungeon. Roscuro forsakes his rat nature to save the princess because he sees her inner beauty, Muggery is just as content being her father's little "princess" as she if she were a real princess. The King's idiotic decisions results of his undying love for his family, and the beautiful Princess Pea finds beauty in the most hideous creatures. In the end, it all works out, but certainly not in a fairytale way, in weirrd way that transcends the barriers between the classes. ( )

Reviewed b Janice M Del Negro in reviewer
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (v. 57 no. 3 (November 2003) p. 99) found through HW Wilson collection
http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.login.ezpro...
 

The Tale of Despereaux is a cute but sort of dark little book about a unique mouse that falls in love with a human princess and soup. He’s nothing like the other mice. And they forbid him to be in they're group. He runs into some rat and bad things happen and Miggery loses it and locks up the princess pea. So with Roscuro's help, Despereaux saves the Princess. ( )

I read this to Luke (age 6) over a course of several evenings. He really enjoys being read to and every evening wanted me to read just one more chapter, but I think he, like me, was a little let down by the nearly uneventful denouement. Upon finishing he asked, "Is that the end?" "Yep," I replied. And no more was said about the matter. Despereaux is a tiny mouse with big ears who takes it upon himself to rescue a princess. But he doesn't feature in the entire tale. It is also the tale of a rat and an abused serving girl. It's well-written but I didn't find it terribly exciting. Last night I checked out the trailer for the upcoming movie based on this book. It looks like much more fun. Not the comment you want to hear about a book. ( )

A disappointing story in which the narrator frequently interrupts the action to speak directly to the reader. The conclusion for the villain is especially frustrating because it had the potential to be better but wasted it. ( )

The Tale of Despereaux is about a little mouse who lives in a castle with his family and a community of other mice, a rat who lives in the castle's dungeons, and a servant girl named Miggery Sow.
Despereaux is not like the other mice. He is extremely small with huge ears. He doesn't act like the other mice. He falls in love with the princess and is sentenced to the dungeon to be killed by the rats.
Roscuro is a rat living in the dark dungeons. He wants revenge on the Princess Pea for how she looked at him. Roscuro Makes a plan with Mig to get the princess to come down to the dungeon. Despereaux heres the plan and its up to him to save the Princess Pea.

This wasn't my favorite book. I did not like how the aurthor would stop in the middle of the story and talk to the reader. This book had alot of dying and talk about death.

I wouldn't use this book in my classroom. There was name calling in the book, which kids would probably start calling each other. There was alot of talk about death and a girl being hit in the head by her master. I wouldn't want my class reading these things.

This children's novel is a good example of fantasy becasue the author personifies the Despereaux, a mouse, his mouse family, and the rats to have human like characteristics and motives. In the tale Despereaux is born as a different sort of mouse who doesn't fit in. After talking to the Princess, a human, Despereaux falls in love with her, but is excommunicated and sent to the Dungeon where the rats live. Desperaux escapes, but learns of a plot by a rat to harm Princess Pea. Through bravery and a great deal of wit Despereaux saves the day and learns a great deal about himself in the process. ( )

Despereaux was born an unusual mouse among the colony of mice, for he did things that were considered abnormal by his family and when he fell in love with the Princess Pea of the kingdom, he broke every rule made for mice and was sentenced to go into the dungeon with the rats and never come back. What happened to Despereaux? Read this classic tale of how rediculous and powerful emotions are and how different life can be depending on the different experiences you had. ( )

Kate DiCamillo is one of the most consistently excellent writers around. Each book is so different but they are all wonderful. This tale of a small mouse on a quest to same a princess from the evil rats was just wonderful. Her unique way of presenting this story and talking to the reader really worked. This would be a great read aloud and would lead to some great discussions. ( )

Fairy tales generally follow a formulaic plot. born of mundane, humble or destitute beginnings, heroes and heroines dream big, face the fire and, not without losing a limb, literally or metaphorically, they save the day, often bringing home a lesson.

What we forget, after much Disnifying, is that our beloved stories from childhood did not have squeaky clean beginnings. The first time I heard a telling of the original Little Mermaid, I almost cried (though my grandmother will tell you that, at seven, I cried at the Disney version as well). It’s gruesome and sad and a little cruel.

Like many of the Grimm stories, Kate DiCamillo’s Tale of Despereaux is a little challenging to read at times due to graphic descriptions, mentions of child abuse or other sad scenes. This, of course, detracts little from the actual plot or message but it is something I found myself wondering and eventually reconciling with the above intro reference to other fairy tales.

The tale, as mentioned above, has all of the classic themes of tried and true children’s stories. The outcast, the ugly duckling, the weak link, Despereaux is smaller than a mouse should be with ears twice his size. He is expected to die as many of his mother’s children have. He is fearless of most things that send mice scurrying, loves to read, you know, the usual iconoclast quirks. He also has a slightly worrisome attachment to human sentimentalities and eventually finds himself head over heels in love with the princess of the castle in which the mice reside. His parents and peers are not amused and do their best to shun him from the community, sending him to no uncertain death in the dungeon.

Of course, the stringent rules of Mouse Society can’t be the only evil in a great tale of woe and adventure. Along the way, our snowball of a story picks up Chiaroscuro, a rat who, like Despereaux, has a habit of breaking the mold, a habit which once landed him in hot soup and landed the entire kingdom in a lot of hot water and Miggery Sow, a beaten down, dim witted country girl with princess dreams.

The story is one of love and compassion beating out cold and fear. Bravery and kindness in the face of all desperation are rewarded and forgiveness and change of heart are paramount. Aside from the aforementioned bits where I thought I might have to squint through the violence and cruelty, the book is fantastic and has all of the winning components of the time tested stories of old. ( )

it is soooo good and wonderful! ( )

This story is about a little tiny mouse, a beautiful princess, a slow witted girl, and a conspiring rat. All these characters struggle with the universal theme of the book -good and evil; light and dark. The book can be a bit disturbing for younger children because the rat is sinister. He torments the prisoners and kidnaps the princess with the idea of killing her. Also the slow witted girl, Mig, was sold as a child and was abused so much she could barely hear. As an adult these things didn't seem so disturbing to me because I knew this book was fantasy and I felt like DiCamillo wasn't overly descriptive in the parts that had to deal with Mig's clouts to the ear etc. For a younger reader this might be shocking. I really like the illustrations in the book. Other than being beautiful, they really helped me visual the book. I enjoyed how the author spoke to the reader in the book asking them if they knew certain words and other various things. Some readers might find this distracting and others might really enjoy it. I think I would recommend this to specific students who would like an author talking to them or fairy tales.
I think this could be used in the classroom as a read aloud from certain excerpts to demonstrate the themes of light and darkness being paralleled with good and evil. ( )

Kearsten says: This is one of those books I've been meaning to read for awhile - it's an award winner, and it involves talking animals, which I've been fond of ever since I fell in love with Bunnicula. Sadly, The Tale of Despereaux has no vampires...

The story is both charming and creepy, involving a heroic mouse in love with a human princess, as well as evil rats who delight in others' pain. What I liked about this story is that overcoming the evil isn't *easy*, and not eveything ends wrapped up in a happily-ever-after ending. (Oh, and if you've seen the movie and not read the book - they messed it up. Seriously. Adding characters, random plot changes, and changing a bad rat to a 'Oops! I guess I'm not so bad, after all!' rat were very poor choices)

Having listened to the book, I expect my opinion of the book has not a little bit to do with the reader, Graeme Malcolm, who reads with enthusiasm and expertise, infusing the different characters with differing voices and even accents...I'm a sucker for accents... ( )

The illustrations of Timothy Basil Ering get five stars. There's no denying the beauty of his work.

The story, though. Eh. I was imagining this book to be something entirely different from what it actually was, so it was a disappointment. I found the book at times to be depressing and a bit disturbing, and I don't like how things ended. It's a sweet tale, sure, but it could have been so much better. ( )

My 10 year old daughter bought this book, but put it down after reading just a few pages and moved on to "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." There's no accounting for some people's tastes! I read it yesterday while my husband was watching Monday Night Football. Interesting mix of sweet (tiny mouse falls in love with a princess) and frightening (girl, who is sold into slavery by her father, beaten by her master almost daily; dungeon full of rats; mothers dying, etc.) - the concept reminded me of the original, non-Disney versions of fairy tales.
I agree with some other reviewers that the author's habit of addressing the reader directly is a bit distracting at times, but for younger readers I'm sure that helps to leaven the frightening aspects of the story.
I liked the way that the story was divided into books, each focusing on a different character. Changing the perspective of the story helped to flesh it out considerably.
I'm going to suggest to my daughter (now 11) that she give this book another try - she absolutely devoured "A Series of Unfortunate Events" and "The Graveyard Book," so "The Tale of Despereaux" certainly won't be too frightening for her. ( )

Despereaux is a mouse who falls in love with a princess, Pea. Pea's mother dies when a rat named Roscuro fell in her soup. Roscuro is after revenge and wants to harm the princess by tricking a slave in the house, Mig, into thinking she could be a princess if she does what Roscuro says. Despereaux helps Pea actually save the day with her large heart and they all lives happily ever after.

The narrator in this story kept actually addressing the reader as "Reader." It was nice but broke the believability of this already unbelievable tale. I loved all the characters, like Cook. This tale was told from different points of view and it allowed the reader to understand how the pieces if the puzzle fit together. I hope when I teach, we have the chance to read this great book!

In a class setting, we could watch the movie and make a Venn diagram that shows the similarities and differences. We also could read other books about hose who have dreams of being something when they feel like they don't belong (the Ugly Duckling, Cinderella.)

This is the story of a mouse who is a bit different from the rest of the mice in his clan. For one thing his ears are a bit larger than normal. For another, he can read. Instead of just foraging for food, this curious mouse gives new meaning to the term "a mouse about the house." Along the way Desperaux meets some rats, a jailer, and a princess. This is a cute little tale that is entertaining for the young and the young at heart. ( )