The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

The fifth book I finished in 2017 is The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. I listened to an audio version with my daughter and we both loved it! Sadly I don't remember who I learned about it from. I think it may have been either Modern Mrs. Darcy or Read-Aloud Revival, but I'm not sure. The audio version we listened to was read by Graeme Malcolm and he did a great job.

These are the three doubled sided pages of notes I took while listening to the book. There's so much good stuff packed into this exciting story!

Here is a great quote I noted from the beginning of the book:

An interesting fate, sometimes involving rats, sometimes not, awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.

And here's one from a little later:

Stories that are not pretty have a certain value too...everything cannot always be sweetness and light

And another loose quote from a little later still:

when the powerful are made weak, revealed to be human, to have hearts, it is terrifying

And these powerful words of wisdom from the cook:

when times are terrible, soup is the answer

Seriously, this little book is so well written and has so many great literary techniques. The descriptions leave you seeing and smelling everything, but yet they are not tedious. The story is full of action and suspense.

This book is definitely at the top of our favourites list at the moment.

Check it out and tell us what you think.