The Tale of Despereaux

by Kate DiCamillo

Love is ridiculous. But love is also wonderful. And powerful.

But, reader, there is no comfort in the word “farewell,” even if you say it in French. “Farewell” is a word that, in any language, is full of sorrow. It is a word that promises absolutely nothing.

Rats, in fact, think that life is very funny. And they are right, reader. They are right.

Did you think that rats do not have hearts? Wrong. All living things have a heart. And the heart of any living thing can be broken.

Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannot always be sweetness and light.

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

The king, as I have already mentioned, had several faults. He was nearsighted. He made ridiculous, unreasonable, difficult-to-enforce laws. And, much in the way of Miggery Sow, he was not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. But there was one extraordinary, wonderful, admirable thing about the king. He was a man who was able and willing to love with the whole of his heart. And just as he had loved the queen with the whole of his heart, so, too, he loved his daughter with the whole of it, even more than the whole. He loved the Princess Pea with every particle of his being, and she had been taken from him.

“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.

Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains.

But, reader, they can be friends. And they were. Together, they had many adventures.