The Tale of Despereaux

Summary of Book: The Tale of Despereaux was written by Katie Dicamillo and is the recipient of the Newberry Award. The story follows the very brave, noble mouse Despereaux. He does not fit in with the rest of his family as he is able to see and actually enjoys reading. This story follows several intertwining stories involving a rat in a dungeon that plots to get revenge on the princess and uses a girl that was sold by her father to do so. And we see that Despereaux is in love with the princess and wants to save her from the rats evil plot. In the end, we see Despereaux was able to save the princess and they remain best friends, the rat is given free range of the castle, and the girl is reunited with the father that sold her and he is so remorseful.

Why you would/would not use this book in your classroom? I don't think I would use this book in my classroom because I'm not sure I see the value of having my students read this book. The fairytale aspect wasn't really there for me.

Appropriate age group for this book: 7-10

Ideas for unit of study to include this book or how you might use this book in the classroom: A really creative idea for this book would be to review the formats of writing a letter and then after reading the story, have students write letters of encouragement to Despereaux.

Comments

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