The Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, a Spool of Thread, a Servant Girl, a Rat, a Red Table Cloth...

I've heard lots of raves for The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. The book won the Newbery Medal somewhere along the line, and it's always good to see the award go to a real kids' story, not an adult weeper disguised as a kids' book.

I can't decide how I feel about this book. There's a lot of really clever stuff here that I enjoyed reading. And DiCamillo didn't waste anything in this story--anything she writes about she uses and connects with at some point. I always like that in a book.

However, the narrator kept speaking to me, something I don't enjoy. I like being sucked into a book, and when the narrator keeps addressing me as "Reader" and asking me how I feel or explaining the meaning of a word I keep remembering that I'm reading a book, I'm not living this adventure.

So, I just don't know. I wish I could speak to some kids who had read the book to see what they think.

My favorite character was the rat, who was supposed to be the bad guy. A sensitive, misunderstood bad guy, but a bad guy nonetheless.

I had hoped to study up on how to include images in my blog so I could use the cover of Despereaux today. However, I spent the afternoon reading about the Great Pyramid instead.

Oh, and then I received a rather major professional rejection. I think I'm in shock, because I'm not too distraught about it at this point.