The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other's lives. What happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would say: Reader, it is your destiny to find out.

This book was fantastic, at times it had me smiling, but others I was sobbing. Parts of this book were so sad but so good. I would suggest this book for late elementary and early middle schoolers. Especially if they like reading, this is a great book for bookworms.

I thought this book was very charming and sweet. I was so surprised to see a lot of acrimonious one and two star reviews and they seem to be from kids who did not like this book being required reading for them. Going to try reading it with the kids to see what they think.

I really liked the first half of this book, and I was very excited for the story and guessing what would happen. It was set up nicely with the mouse and rat who were similar but different characters and i was very invested in their stories. I lost a lot of interest during ‘book the third' and wasn't interested in Mig or any of the human characters. I felt like we were told repeatedly how much of a good person Pea was but we never really saw it. Hearing Mig say “Gor” about 2 thousand times was not very enticing but I get that this is a kid's book.
I found it a little disappointing how one-dimensional Roscuro was and he kinda just ended up being generic bad guy with a rushed redemption. I was expecting it to be a bit more nuanced so my expectations fell a little short.
I did enjoy this book though I thought it was cute and I loved the parts focussing on the rodents! There were a lot of really nice quote-able parts of this book and I'll be thinking about it for a while!

This sweet middle-grade book about a tiny mouse living in a castle was a great palette cleanser. Children's lit can really have a way of tugging on the heart strings.