2004: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX by Kate DiCamillo, with illustrations by Timothy Basil Ering
This story begins within the walls of a castle, with the birth of a mouse.
"It insists upon itself, Lois."
"What?"
"It insists upon itself."
"What does that even mean?"
-Family Guy
Dear Ms. DiCamillo,
Thank you again for the opportunity to reach out and ask you a few questions about your work for my newsletter. Honestly, I don't want to take up too much of your time, and I'm just looking for a few clarifying details on some plot points. Really, the main thing I'm still stuck on is this: it seems as though your protagonist, the medieval mouse Despereaux, just suddenly gained the ability to read out of nowhere. No other mouse in the castle can read, and all of a sudden Despereaux finds himself standing on top of a book processing the words "once upon a time" and inspired by the tales of chivalry and danger that he finds. I went back and checked, and it doesn't look like I missed a scene where, say, someone teaches him to read, or he somehow picks up the skill. Can you just help me understand what I'm missing?
Thank you again for your time.
Tony Ginocchio
Young Master Ginocchio:
Light, dear reader! We are in the business of light when we weave our words upon the loom of the mind, but the loom itself produces not fabric but a tapestry of light itself. For, reader, did you know that the light-rug of the word-loom can dapple even the darkest of hearts? Every morning, we writers hear the call, the call of light, and we seat ourselves and prepare for more weaving of the dense tapestry that guides us through the fog of ignorance, cloaking us in its brilliance, protecting us from the unknown. It is this very light that our hero, Despereaux, saw in the story that bright morning, and the very light he would come to see in himself. A powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing this light is, and Despereaux would soon come to know that, as would his would-be assassin, Roscuro the rat, and the serving girl Miggery Sow, who would come to play a light-filled role upon the stage of both of their lives.
I remain, as always, your obedient servant &c.,
K. DiC.
Dear Ms. DiCamillo,
Okay, I didn't realize you actually talked like that every day. I had assumed that was a stylistic decision you had made to…you know what, never mind. I do want to circle back to my original question, because I'm not sure you actually answered it: how did Despereaux learn to read?
I also have some questions for you on how you come up with character names, if time allows.
Thank you again for your time,
Tony Ginocchio
Young Master Ginocchio:
I would like it very much, reader, if you imagined me as a mouse, whispering in your ear, telling you a story, this story, about the tiny mouse with the enormous ears and the miniature sword in the large castle, the mouse through whom the light of our story shines. Imagine. And while you are imagining things, imagine this too, reader: a tale of Despereaux in which our valiant hero does not learn to read in my Book The First, titled “Book The First: A Mouse Is Born”, and so titled for its depiction of the birth of this reading mouse, this hero who soon will cloak himself in light. One imagining such a story without that element would feel cheated by Destiny herself, as if challenged to a fight and then left alone in the silent coliseum of the mind, starved of the adventure of grappling with this strange and powerful woman called Destiny. For it was the Lady Destiny who granted Despereaux his gift, the Lady Destiny who gives us all our gifts.
I remain, as always, your obedient servant &c.,
K. DiC.
Dear Ms. DiCamillo,
Okay, it was just destiny, got it. Is that why Despereaux can talk to humans as well? Like, that's why he was able to talk to Princess Pea? Again, let me know if you have time to talk about character names.
Thank you again for your time,
Tony Ginocchio
Young Master Ginocchio:
Nay and Fie! For even in a world as ridiculous as this, all mice can talk to humans if they so wish, but they wish it never to be so. It is for this very reason that the king denounces brave Desperaux by proclaiming that “Rodents do not speak to princesses. We will not have this becoming a topsy-turvy, wrong-headed world. There are rules.", and for this very reason that Despereaux is condemned by "the mouse council, thirteen honored mice and one Most Very Honored Head Mouse," who are summoned by the thimble-drum of the very father of Despereaux, and condemn him to the dungeons for consorting with a human.
I remain, as always, your obedient servant &c.,
K. DiC.
Dear Ms. DiCamillo,
Just to confirm: every mouse can speak, but only one mouse can read? And that's through a miraculous act of destiny?
Thank you again for your time,
Tony Ginocchio
Young Master Ginocchio:
Aye, dear reader, and together we have solved another mystery, swimming through the question-depths and onto the knowledge-shores guided by the word-lights of our lantern-books. Yet the question of soup remains, as you would expect, the central question of my novel, the full title of which is actually The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread (I beseech you, please include the full title in your newsletter). For it is soup that draws the three together on their journey, soup that has the power to heal, aye, but also a terrible power lying beneath.
Twas soup that served as the unwitting pillory for Roscuro, our dastardly rat who fell from the chandelier, landed in the queen's soup bowl, and drove the queen to die of fright, as described in “Book The Second: Chiaroscuro”. The ensuing kingdom-wide soup ban, the accompanying ban on cans, bowls, and spoons throughout the realm? Well, it was such a ban that puzzled young Miggery Sow, the poor servant girl beaten deaf by the man who bought her from her father and was later sentenced to the dungeons as well - as described in “Book The Third: Gor! The Tale Of Miggery Sow” - wearing a red tablecloth eventually stolen by Roscuro himself and worn as a cape, along with his sinister spoon-crown, and the hubris that accompanied it, hubris that led to the plot to manipulate Miggery, purloin Pea, and destroy Despereaux once and for all, a conflict brought to a head in “Book The Fourth: Recalled To The Light”.
And although this is obviously a very simple and relatable story, it is soup, simple soup that nourishes the characters, the scent of soup that stays the claw of Roscuro in the end, the promise of soup that reunites the kingdom and creates a new Once Upon a Time for Despereaux.
I remain, as always, your obedient servant &c.,
K. DiC.
Dear Ms. DiCamillo,
Okay, I'm actually glad you brought that up, because I still have an awful lot of questions.
I absolutely do not want to be disrespectful; you are the first author that agreed to do an exchange like this for Newburied, and that really does mean a lot to me. You seem like a nice and conscientious person who has said all of the right things about the importance of children's literature, the marvel of public libraries, or the recent wave of book challenges and bans. I also think that your novel is very ambitious and impressive in how it's structured and plotted, and your decision to lay out the novel in parts following each character arc separately, rather than in one continuous timeline, helps make this stand out among other children's novels. I think that focusing on themes of love and forgiveness as "powerful" "wonderful" "ridiculous" forces is a good thing to do in a book for children.
But in terms of "what actually happens", this novel has no recognizable internal logic of any kind. Why do I have to know how the mouse council is structured and what all of their rules are, and then why am I given what appears to be as little information as possible about how they got there? Why does a mouse have to wear a red thread around his neck when he's condemned to the dungeon to get eaten by rats? Why does the plot have to turn on lines of dialogue like “Ho- hee. Because a mouse is not a king’s man here to punish me for making soup"? Why soup? What sort of weird arbitrary decision is that? Why is Despereaux the only mouse who can hear music? Why is that important in the first thirty pages of the novel and then never again? Does that have something to do with his big ears? Is that why you spend so much time describing how big his ears are? Because there's no other possible reason given in the novel? Why is there an unusual amount of violence in here, too? Why does Despereaux get his tail chopped off? Why do I have to constantly worry about whether he's going to be eaten alive by rats in the darkness of the dungeon? Are we kind of in the realm of fable here? And if we are, why did you make the structure of the novel so convoluted and the language so elevated?
It just feels like we’re putting together a pastiche of a few different genres - making a soup, I guess - and the ingredients just aren’t getting chopped up and added the way that they’re supposed to. We end up with the elevated language of high fantasy without the right plotting, the moral weight of fable without the simplicity, the stupid names of genre fiction without a coherent world for them to live in.
And please pardon the crass term, but it's very clear that the Newbery committee loves riding your dick. You are one of only six authors in history to win two Newberys, and your most famous novel, Because Of Winn-Dixie - which features characters that you named Gloria Dump, Franny Block, Dunlap Dewberry, and Opal Buloni - was also a finalist. Do kids like reading this stuff? Do they? Because I feel like every sentence is designed to say "look at me, I'm a writer," which does not seem like a thing a kid would enjoy reading, but that the Newbery committee would definitely ride somebody's dick over.
Again, sorry for the language, it was the only way I could think of to get the point across.
Thank you again for your time,
Tony Ginocchio
Young Master Ginocchio:
You scoundrel. I have convened the Council of Six - which is me, Matt de la Pena, Donna Barba Higuera, Blue Balliet, John Green, and Karen Cushman - and we have condemned you to death by firing squad. You are to report to Independence Hall in Philadelphia at dawn tomorrow. I regret that it has come to this, but we will not allow an enemy of the light such as yourself to continue spreading this filth.
I remain, as always, your obedient servant &c.,
K. DiC.
Dear Ms. DiCamillo,
Okay, I’m not doing that. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to write.
Newburied is a series by Tony Ginocchio on the history of the Newbery Medal and a whole bunch of other stuff related to it. You can subscribe via Substack to get future installments sent to your inbox directly. The next installment will cover the 1951 medalist, Amos Fortune: Free Man by Elizabeth Yates.