What We’re Reading

The Tale of Despereaux | Kate DiCamillo

Rating:

Desperaux Tilling was a disappointment to his mother from the day he was born–the only of his litter of mice babies to survive. But with his big ears, and his wide-open eyes, the family immediately decides there’s something wrong with him. Indeed, Despereaux does seem to be lacking all requisite mouse desires.

His brother tries to teach him to scurry, but he would rather enjoy the stained glass windows. His sister tries to teach him to nibble books, but he would rather read. While his family hears nothing but the sounds of falling food, Despereaux is drawn to a sweeter sound, one only he seems to hear. And so it is he finds himself in the Princess Pea’s bedroom, listening to her father the King sing to her.

This is the last straw for the mouse community. They call together the council and together decide he must be sent to the Dungeon. No mice ever come back from the rat-infested dungeon. This is surely the way to rid themselves of this danger.

But this is the story of an unlikely hero, and Despereaux does come back from the dungeon. Just in time to be too late to warn anyone of the dangers to the princess. When her father the King won’t listen to Despereaux’s advice on what’s happened to the missing girl, he realizes it will be up to him to save her. And so he sets off, one little mouse, about to do the impossible.

This was a really quick read and a really cute book. I’ll probably be buying it for my permanent collection. Definitely worth a read.

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The The Tale of Despereaux | Kate DiCamillo by Jaemi, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 7:51 am by Jaemi and is filed under Book Review, Staff Favorites. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: adventure, children's books, easy chapter books, juvenile fiction, ya fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.