The Tale of Despereaux

by Kate DiCamillo

Reader, do you think that it is a terrible thing to hope when there is really no reason to hope at all? Or is it (as the soldier said about happiness) something that you might just as well do, since, in the end, it really makes no difference to anyone but you?

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 never known a mouse who has made it out of the dungeon only to go back into it again. Goodbye, friend. Goodbye, mouse among mice.”

And times are terrible. And when times are terrible, soup is the answer. Don’t it smell like the answer?”

Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. Nothing.