The Tale of Desperaux (Kate diCamillo)

 

This is one of those books I should have read years ago. I have often heard it talked about but hadn't read it until now. I did get to hear Timothy Basil Eyring speak once though (maybe in 2012?? It was a Kaleidoscope Conference....a conference I still fondly remember!) and he totally sold me on the book. 

There are some beautiful themes in this book: forgiveness, redemption, dreaming, love, and of course light...and more.

I read this aloud to my class. I was so struck by the beautiful words. I kept a sticky note pad nearby and mastered the art of reading while grabbing a sticky note and depositing it on the page. These are some of my noted spots:

p. 55 The dungeon! The rats! Desperaux's small heart sank all the way to the tip of his tail. There would be no light in the dungeon. No stained-glass windows. No library and no books. There would be no Princess Pea.   

p. 81 Gregory: "...Stories are Light. Light is precious in a world so dark."

p. 181 He dreamt of the stained-glass windows and the dark of the dungeon. In Despereaux's dream, the light came to life, brilliant and glorious, in the shape of a knowing swinging a sword. The knight fought the dark.

And the dark took many shapes. First the dark was his mother, uttering phrases in French. And then the dark became his father beating the drum. The dark was Furlough wearing a black hoot and shaking his head no. After the dark became a huge rat smiling a smile that was evil and sharp.
(Writing assignment: What is your dark and your light?)

p. 186 No one would ever, not for one blind minute, mistake Mig for the princess or the princess for Mig. But Miggery Sow, as I pointed out to you before, was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And read, too, she wanted so desperately to become a princess. She wanted, oh, how she wanted. And it was because of this terrible wanting that she was able to believe in Roscuro's plan with every ounce of her heart.

p. 207 Forgiveness, reader, is, I think, something very much like hope and love, a powerful, wonderful thing.

p. 208 But still, here are the words Desperaux Tilling spoke to his father. He said, "I forgive you, Pa."
And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.

p. 217 "Thread," said the threadmaster. He shrugged and took another loud bite of celery. "Nothing more. Nothing less.  But I pretend, friend, I pretend, And what, May I ask, do you intend to do with the thread?"
"Save the princess."
"Ah yes, the princess. The beautiful princess. That's how this whole story started, isn't it."
I have to save her. There is no one but me to do it."
"It seems to be that way with most things. No one to do the really disagreeable jobs except oneself. And how exactly, will you use a spook of thread to save a princess?"
"A rat has taken her and hidden her in the dungeon, so I have to go back to the dungeon, and it is full of twists and turns and hidden chambers." 

Goodreads says:

A brave mouse, a covetous rat, a wishful serving girl, and a princess named Pea come together in Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Medal–winning tale.

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.

All The Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)

I had a lot of people recommend this book to me. It took me a LONG time to read it because I got busy with work projects and didn't have much time for reading. It was hard to follow since I had spread it over such a long period of time. Once I got back to it and got into it, I quite enjoyed it. The chapters are short and bounce between the character's stories. Once I got the rhythm of it, I quite enjoyed it.  I do love World War II stories. It is amazing the courage so many people showed during that time.

One story is about a boy in Nazi Germany who lives in a orphanage with his sister.  He is gifted at fixing radios and also has a keen interest in many other things. He listens to a nightly science program broadcast from France. Because he is so good at fixing radio and gifts in math and science, he wins a spot in a Hitler Youth Academy. He is happy to have something to do beyond working in the coal mines that killed his father, however, he has to start to not think about what goes on in the Hitler Youth Academy.

The other story is about a young blind girl named Marie-Laure who lives in Paris. She is cared for by her father who works at a museum. She became blind as a little girl. Her father builds a miniature model of their neighborhood, so she can memorize every street, building and corner. When the war comes to Paris, she and her father go to Saint-Malo to live with a great-uncle who lives in a tall, storied house next to a sea wall.

What does the title mean?
"The title is a reference first and foremost to all the light we literally cannot see: that is, the wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that are beyond the ability of human eyes to detect (radio waves, of course, being the most relevant). It’s also a metaphorical suggestion that there are countless invisible stories still buried within World War II — that stories of ordinary children, for example, are a kind of light we do not typically see. Ultimately, the title is intended as a suggestion that we spend too much time focused on only a small slice of the spectrum of possibility." 
- Anthony Doerr

Goodreads says:
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.