By Kate DiCamillo
Three lives interconnect in an unusual yet seamless manner in The Tale of Despereaux. Kate DiCamillo’s plays the reader like a master at the chessboard pulling the reader in and not letting go. I picked up The Tale of Despereaux to just read a chapter or two before sleeping and found myself unable to stop reading until the book was finished.
The story meshes a mouse, a rat, and a serving girl in intrigue, revenge, and a kidnapping in which the life a princess hangs in the balance. Fear not, the princess is rescued by an incredibly brave but tiny mouse from a vengeful rat named Roscuro and a dull-witted and ill-used serving girl with a hideous name, Miggery Sow.
The mouse council condemns Despereaux, the mouse, to death because he cannot conform to the society’s codes of conduct. By a cruel twist of fate with shades of the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, Despereaux is accused by his own father and drug to his death by a red thread around his neck by his very own brother. Poor Despereaux is rescued by Gregory, the jailer, who loves to be told stories which Despereaux happens to tell quite well.
Roscuro, the rat, snuck into the castle and fell into the queen’s soup. The queen promptly fell over dead causing the princess to blame Roscuro. He escaped back into darkness and plotted his revenge against the princess.
Miggery Sow, a simple-minded serving girl, has been abused for years with repeated clouts to the ears rendering her somewhat deaf. She finds her way into employment in the castle and into the clutches of Roscuro’s plot for revenge.
From this point on, the story moves quickly to the actual kidnapping and rescue
of the princess. Despereaux is welcomed back into his family by his repentant father and lives happily ever after.
Dialogue is wonderfully written in The Tale of Despereaux. I found myself talking to some of the characters out loud, responding as if I were in the story, too. I will definitely be encouraging my students to read this story. Unfortunately, we do not have enough copies for even a small reading group, but we will! When do we have enough copies, this web site has an entire unit available for use.
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/unitplan.jsp?id=163
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5 comments:
I too found myself "in" the story. As I read, I had a hard time concentrating on other things - I was so lost in the book. No matter what task I was doing, my mind was still in the throws of the story. One reason I think that happened so easily was DiCamillo's technique of talking directly to the reader. It was so natural to answer her, or do whatever she said. What a great way to captivate the reader!
I was lost in the fantasy world of the medieval spin of the story. It intrigued me as books should do, and the direct addressing of the reader seemed to be an effective ploy of the author. In reading your post I was reminded of the Pollyanna part played by the princess. Even as she was led to the dungeon the reader sensed that she was an eternal optomist and purely innocent. If only she knew of the plans the terrific trio had in store for her.
I've noticed you have some great links included in your blog responses for some of the books. Thanks for taking the time to do this! They're great resources :)
I've noticed you have some great links included in your blog responses for some of the books. Thanks for taking the time to do this! It's a great resource :)
I really love your beautiful synopsis of this book. I can never seem to find the words to summarize a book as wonderfully as you can. Did you find yourself giggling a little when Mig had to continually ask others in the story to repeat what they had said? I could almost imagine the others sighing audibly before they took a deep breath to shout their previous statement back to her.
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