The Tale of Despereaux

                                   by

                     Kate DiCamillo

                                            Illustrated by

                            Timothy Basil Ering

New York Times Bestseller for Children’s List (2005)

DiCamillo, K. (2003). The tale of Despereaux.

Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Moliere wrote plays in which he would take a character whom society considers the most worthless, like a maid, and he would turn that person into the intrinsically best individual in his story.  Kate DiCamillo seems to do the same, except that she uses animals instead of people.  So, a scruffy stray dog named Winn-Dixie can change an entire town for the better, and a lowly mouse named Despereaux can behave like one of the three Musketeers in order to try and save an imprisoned princess.

Indeed, most of the characters in The Tale of Despereaux are lowly, including mice, rats, a jailer, and a scullery maid.  One interesting creative element that the author employs is giving a number of the characters peculiar ears.  Despereaux has very large ears; Botticelli the rat has only one ear; and Mig the scullery maid can’t hear very well because of blows to the ears she received while growing up.

DiCamillo is also very creative in the way her story is made of four books that each tell a different part of the tale from the perspective of three different characters – Despereaux, Chiaroscuro, and Mig – and brings everything together in the last book.  Considering how much death, physical pain, sadness and darkness there is to the story, Kate DiCamillo still manages to give a true fairy tale ending to her story by ending the tale in a 4-F manner:  with Fun, Fellowship, Food and Family.   

 

PICTURE SOURCES:

kidsblogs.nationalgeographic.com

fripon-meandamerica.blogspot.com

mrssatan.blogspot.com

paintingsilove.com