The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread

A small mouse falls in love with a human princess and is banished to the dungeon. A clever rat, born in the dungeon, longs for the world of light above. A farm girl turned serving maid has dreams above her station. When these three stories intersect, adventure ensues.

For me, this book is the high point of DiCamillo's writing to date, though I have enjoyed most of her stories and loved some of them. The characters are delightful, and though the book has that fairy-tale feel, it doesn't keep the reader at a distance the way fairy tales sometimes can. There's lots of humor and plenty of adventure. I've been reading it serially to a group of elementary school students, and they eagerly await each instalment. Reader, there is so much light show more here, if only you will look. show less

Beautiful, sad, funny, and ultimately wise, Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux is destined, I believe, to become a childhood classic. It certainly deserved the Newbery Medal which it won! Opening with the story of the eponymous Despereaux Tilling, a tiny mouse who offends his murine community by falling in love with a human princess, thereby earning banishment to the castle dungeons, there to die at the hands of the terrible rats, the story ties together four main narrative strands. There is the aforementioned Despereaux; there is the light-addled rat Chiaroscuro - Roscuro for short - who also transgresses against the rules of his kind, and who thirsts for vengeance when he discovers how hated his kind are, out in the world of show more light; there is the much neglected and abused young serving girl, Miggery Sow, whose vision of hope involves becoming a princess; and then there is the Princess Pea herself, mourning for her dead mother. The fates of these four characters converge in a moving tale of longing, love and light...

Immediately engrossing as a story, this book is also a moving and thought-provoking exploration of a number of important themes. I was struck by the wisdom of the author's many asides, in which she addresses the reader directly, asking them to consider the nature of everything from love to despair, forgiveness to vengeance. I know that this style of directly addressing the reader has put some off, but I found it charming. I also thought it revealed a great respect for the child reader on the author's part, a determination to draw them into a wider world of reflection and critical thought. I found so many passages in The Tale of Despereaux moving, but I will quote just three, to give a sampling:

"Reader, you may ask this question; in fact, you must ask this question: Is it ridiculous for a very small, sickly, big-eared mouse to fall in love with a beautiful human princess named Pea?
The answer is... yes. Of course, it's ridiculous.
Love is ridiculous.
But love is also wonderful. And powerful."

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"Forgiveness, reader, is, I think, something very much like hope and love, a powerful, wonderful thing.
And a ridiculous thing, too.
Isn't it ridiculous, after all, to think that a son could forgive his father for beating the drum that sent him to his death? Isn't it ridiculous to think that a mouse could ever forgive anyone for such perfidy?
But still, here are the words Despereaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, "I forgive you, Pa."
And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself."

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"Pea was suddenly aware of how fragile her heart was, how much darkness was inside it, fighting, always, with the light. She did not like the rat. She would never like the rat, but she knew what she must do to save her own heart." show less

Kate DiCamillo hasn't written a bad book yet! I loved this one the best!

It is a tale of a teeny, tiny mouse with a scrawny body and huge ears who falls in love with the princess of the castle.

There are incredible images of dark and then redeeming light and of failure and then hope.

Some of the phrases were so beautifully crafted that I returned time and time again simply to re-read them.

"Hope is like love -- it is a ridiculous, wonderful, powerful thing."

"Forgiveness is very much like hope and love -- a powerful and wonderful thing."

There is an incredible analogy of a mouse who persecutes Desperaux. Because the nasty mouse had a broken heart that was harmed, then healed, the wicked mouse was left with a heart that "grew back show more crookedly."

This will be one of my top ten books of 2010. Highly recommended. show less

I just can't get enough of children's and YA books these days. And this one was wonderful!

Despereaux Tilling is a mouse, born too small with ears too large and he has the sniffles, and he just can't keep his mind on the important mouse-kind mission of finding crumbs. Instead, he has the heart of a knight, is entranced by a story of "once upon a time," and soon finds a maiden trapped in a dungeon whom he honors with every fiber of his little mouse body, mind, and soul.

A great book to read, chapter by chapter as a multi-night bedtime story, to little ones who will be enthralled by Despereaux and also by DiCamillo's willingness to talk directly to them like the fully sentient and comprehending human beings they are. And for the taller show more folk, it's just a downright lovely tale. show less

What do you get when you take a formula of princesses, unrequited love, a rat villain, and twist it for a new spin? You get Despereaux! A book where what you expect might not happen at all, the typical is spun on its head, and a small mouse goes on an adventure not quite like any other. Despereaux is the mouse equivalent of Dumbo, Cinderella, and a lot more. It's charming and a read that all should try at least once.

i love kate dicamillo and this is good but not in my favorites of hers. it's a little darker, which i like, and also funny in places. charming and strange and like a new fairytale.

I initially chose to read this book because I heard that it had been made into a movie. I assumed that if the book was made into a movie, even if I hadn't seen it yet, it would still be a good story. I am glad to say that my assumptions were correct. Although I have still not seen the movie, the book was excellent!
Although I am not a huge fan of chapter books, I have to admit that this is possibly one of the best that I have ever read. The use of emotion within the text was my favorite. Being different from all of the others, you could sense Desperaux exploring those differences. While the other mice were trying to find food crumbs to eat, Desperaux was reading a book. From reading this book, his whole outlook on life changed. From show more reading this book, he allowed his emotions to fill up inside him. He wanted to explore the concept of love and of "happily ever after". From reading this book, he was able to gain the courage to talk to the princess, even though it was a forbidden rule among mice. In all reality, the whole adventure that Desperaux went on stemmed from his reading this single book. In a sense, I found this to be somewhat ironic, seeing I am here reading a book about his adventures which all began because he chose to read a book.
The characters were very well developed throughout the book. I enjoyed the way that the author skipped around, often going back in time to introduce a new character. These flashbacks occurred when the author introduced Roscuro and Miggery Sow. I also liked that when each character was introduced, the chapter was written in their perspective. I feel that this allowed the reader to get a real sense of how each character not only came to be, but how all of their pasts indirectly affected each other's future. An example of this is the man that was imprisoned inside the jail happened to be the father of Miggery Sow. A second example of this is that it was Roscuro's fault for why soup had been banned throughout the kingdom. This soup banishment affected Miggery Sow even in her past when the knights men came to collect all of the spoons and bowls from her owner. This is when she was discovered to be a slave and brought to the castle. In a sense, it was Roscuro's actions which indirectly led to Miggery Sow's freedom.
I feel that the overall message of this story is to always be true to yourself, even if others see you differently. At the end of the day, being yourself is what is most important. Being yourself can take you on many different adventures to many different places. It was Desperaux's dream to find a "happy ever after", and even though it wasn't exactly what he thought it would be, he was in fact...happy. I see it was a simple blessing in disguise. show less