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

I reread this with my daughter and though it was darker than I remembered, I loved the message in the end. I think DiCamillo has a wonderful skill for bringing a scene to life and I won't soon forget the dark dungeons, the rat with a spoon for a crown, the outlawing of soup, or the brave mouse whose heart is even bigger than his ears.

A delightfully clever fairy tale about a mouse in love, a Princess named Pea, and a Kingdom where soup is outlawed. Tiny Despereaux learns a few things about life and about himself, in his quest to rescue a fair maiden from the dungeon where she is held by a horde of nasty rats (even though they're illegal too!). Spoiler alert (nah, you know it all along): Good wins out.

There has been a lot of buzz about this book in recent years, and I know a movie even came out a few years ago. My son checked it out from the school library, so I decided it was time to give it a read.

The storyteller voice is excellent. The illustrations are superb. The story irritated the heck out of me. Very little is about Despereaux. It's a love story, in an odd way, with a mouse falling in love with a girl. I was appalled at how the females were handled in the book, both mouse and human. They most all fainted, were punching bags for abusive men, or were so simpering in the way that they were good that it made me want to scream. The ending. Oh, the ending. I read it in disbelief. It's idealistic and the message of it appalled me. show more (Yes, make a nice meal for the fellow who attempted to murder you, because you're such a nice and empathetic girl.)

I like it when lead characters are genuinely good people. But here... it really rubbed me the wrong way. And Miggery Sow's character, what she endured, how the story ended for her, made me genuinely angry. show less

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

Not at all what I expected- but in the best way possible. I thought it would be a cutesy anthropomorphic tale of a plucky mouse but it was that and so much more. A fairy tale in the best definition thereof. I can see why it won the Newbery- a flexible fourth wall; a classic form with a wink to prior literature; a narrator that is sympathetic but *mostly* reliable. Very good.

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

Probably one of my favorite children's books I have ever read. It was so uniquely set up because it was broken into different sections about the most important characters. I like how the whole book was being tied together near the end of each part, or if the parts overlapped to show different perspectives. It was so entertaining and engaging that it did not even seem like a big book. I liked how she included illustrations every once and a while, especially of the the main characters in the story. It was nice to have a solid visual in your mind as you were reading so much about each of the characters. The main message was about bravery from the most unlikely source. I loved how she narrator talked to the reader in the story, makes the show more reader connect with the story and also made the story feel childlike, such as, “Say it, reader. Say the word 'quest' out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn't it? So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope.” Personally makes me smile every time I was spoken to in such a way by a story. I like how the story showed the world just in the castle; how there is good, the light upstairs, and the bad, the basement. I liked the good message that the author brought across with that. Just a very excellent book. show less