Tale of Despereaux : Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread

by DICAMILLO, KATEERING, TIMOTHY BASIL

• ISBN13: 9780763629281
• ISBN10: 0763629286
• Edition: Limited
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-01
• Publisher: Candlewick

Summary

The cherished Newbery Medal winner receives a stunning new treatment in a slipcased edition featuring 24 new full-color illustrations. The story of Despereaux Tilling - a mouse in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea - has enchanted children and adults around the globe. Now this instant classic by Kate DiCamillo, America's beloved storyteller, takes on new life with the addition of twenty-four color illustrations by the incomparable Timothy Basil Ering, specially created for this collectible gift edition.

Author Biography

Kate DiCamillo is the author of THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX as well as THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE, winner of a BOSTON GLOBE-HORN BOOK Award; BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE, a Newbery Honor winner; THE TIGER RISING, a National Book Award Finalist; the picture book GREAT JOY; and five books starring Mercy Watson, including a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book. She lives in Minneapolis.

Timothy Basil Ering created twenty-four black-and-white illustrations for the original edition of THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX as well as new color artwork for the slipcased edition shown here. He is the author-illustrator of THE STORY OF FROG BELLY RAT BONE and NECKS OUT FOR ADVENTURE! and the illustrator of MR. AND MRS. GOD IN THE CREATION KITCHEN by Nancy Wood. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Excerpts

CHAPTER ONE: THE LAST ONE This story begins within the walls of a castle, with the birth of a mouse. A small mouse. The last mouse born to his parents and the only one of his litter to be born alive. "Where are my babies?" said the exhausted mother when the ordeal was through. "Show to me my babies." The father mouse held the one small mouse up high. "There is only this one," he said. "The others are dead." "Mon Dieu, just the one mouse baby?" "Just the one. Will you name him?" "All of that work for nothing," said the mother. She sighed. "It is so sad. It is such the disappointment." She was a French mouse who had arrived at the castle long ago in the luggage of a visiting French diplomat. "Disappointment" was one of her favorite words. She used it often. "Will you name him?" repeated the father. "Will I name him? Will I name him? Of course, I will name him, but he will only die like the others. Oh, so sad. Oh, such the tragedy." The mouse mother held a handkerchief to her nose and then waved it in front of her face. She sniffed. "I will name him. Yes. I will name this mouse Despereaux, for all the sadness, for the many despairs in this place. Now, where is my mirror?" Her husband handed her a small shard of mirror. The mouse mother, whose name was Antoinette, looked at her reflection and gasped aloud. "Toulese," she said to one of her sons, "get for me my makeup bag. My eyes are a fright." While Antoinette touched up her eye makeup, the mouse father put Despereaux down on a bed made of blanket scraps. The April sun, weak but determined, shone through a castle window and from there squeezed itself through a small hole in the wall and placed one golden finger on the little mouse. The other, older mice children gathered around to stare at Despereaux. "His ears are too big," said his sister Merlot. "Those are the biggest ears I've ever seen." "Look," said a brother named Furlough, "his eyes are open. Pa, his eyes are open. They shouldn't be open." It is true. Despereaux's eyes should not have been open. But they were. He was staring at the sun reflecting off his mother's mirror. The light was shining onto the ceiling in an oval of brilliance, and he was smiling up at the sight. "There's something wrong with him," said the father. "Leave him alone." Despereaux's brothers and sisters stepped back, away from the new mouse. "This is the last," proclaimed Antoinette from her bed. "I will have no more mice babies. They are such the disappointment. They are hard on my beauty. They ruin, for me, my looks. This is the last one. No more." "The last one," said the father. "And he'll be dead soon. He can't live. Not with his eyes open like that." But, reader, he did live. This is his story. ______ THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering. Text copyright (c) 2006 by Kate DiCamillo. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.