The Tale of Despereaux

"Forgiveness, light, love, and soup. These are the things that matter."

From the two-time Newbery Medal-winning author of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tiger Rising comes a deftly crafted fairy tale adventure about the power of stories and the courage of the smallest among us.

Meet Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is different from all other mice. He is tiny, sickly, and possesses unusually large ears. Most importantly, he is a mouse who refuses to conform; he prefers reading books to eating them and has fallen head-over-heels in love with a human princess named Pea. But in the world of the castle, a mouse loving a princess is a crime punishable by banishment to the rat-infested dungeon.

This is not just Despereaux's story, however. It is also the tale of Roscuro, a rat who lives in the darkness but hungers for the light, and Miglia Sow, a poor, deaf serving girl with foolish dreams of grandeur. As their fates intertwine, a plot of unlimited treachery unfolds. It will take an unlikely hero with old-fashioned courage to navigate the darkness and bring soup, light, and forgiveness back to the Kingdom of Dor.