The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

Title : The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread
Author : Kate Dicamillo
Illustrator : Timothy B. Ering
Year of Publication : 2003
Publisher : Candlewick; Library Binding edition

The tales of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread is a Newbery Medal Book. Few years back, someone read it and told me I MUST READ it and wanted to lend me her copy. It seems too much of a children's book and so I didn't really care. Then a year later, another friend read the same book and he recommended it to me too and even did a book review on it. AMAZING!! So the title just so strike inside my mind that this time when I came across this book, I felt I MUST READ it. I finally got hold of a copy and it didn't disappoint. The Tale of Despereaux is one of the most enchanting little stories I've ever read, and I have a feeling it's going to go down as a true children's classic.

The story spins around a Mouse named Despereaux who is an outcast of the mice community for not being able to perform or adhere to what a mouse should do. Despereaux is a misfit mouse who prefers reading books to eating them, listen to hear music and to be able to fell in love with a human. Despereaux fell deeply in love with the human Princess Pea, and that beings a chain of adventures for Despereaux. He needs to battle an unhappy rat who schemes to leave the darkness of the dungeon and a servant girl, Mig to save the Princess.

The story is very simple and straight-forward and the writing style of DiCamilo was really captivating. In such a simple story, it proclaims a message about love, hope and forgiveness. It portrays the contrast between the castle grounds as light and the dungeon as dark. Below is one of the part that I particulary like in the story book about what is LOVE?

I also particularly like the physical binding and paper texture of the book. The sides are even purposely made to be tattered and torn like a book from the LONG AGO. The Tale of Despereaux is an amazing novel for people of every age which will be read for a long time.