Title: The Tale of Despereaux
Author: Kate DiCamillo
Number of Pages: 268
Genre of Novel: Fiction
This book is written in such way, that it tells each character's story one by one. I think it'll be much easier if I do the same. I'll start with the main, and probably the nicest character, the smallest mouse one could imagine, Despereaux.

Despereaux: The moment Despereaux was born, everyone thought him weird. He was unusually small, and his ears were abnormally large. And also, he was born with his eyes open! No mouse was ever born with his eyes wide open. But Despereaux was. Do you know what Despereaux in French means? It means depression. His mother names him that because he was the last of the mice to be born. All his other brothers and sisters at that moment had died. And worst of all, he heard things, instead of smelled them. He heard music no one else did. And then the worst is he sat at the  King's feet and let the Princess touch him! This was the biggest sin one could make because mice were supposed to avoid humans. Despite everyone's effort to try to make Despereaux into a real mouse, he stayed the way he was. And he ended up falling in love with the Princess! He name was Princess Pea, and she was loveliest person Despereaux had ever met. And since every mouse thought him weird, they decided to punish him for his weird behaviour. And the way they punish mice is by giving them to the rats! The rats eat them but that's the end. But a prisoner in the dungeons saved Despereaux, so he was free.  But once he was freed he learned that his beloved Princess was stolen, and he had to find her! But was he going to be too late?

Chiaroscuro: Chiaroscuro is not the most pleasant character. He's a rat, and rats as we know are not the cutest animals that live. The very strange thing about him is that he likes light. No rat likes light. They only live in the dark, and do cruel things to humans. It is because Roscuro (his name for short) liked the light so much, he decided to visit the rest of the castle he lived in, where there was light. But coming up ended in a disaster, where he fell in the soup of the queen, and she died of the heart attack. The Princess Pea, the same one that Despereaux likes, glared at him and told Roscuro he was a rat. Somehow Roscuro knew being called a rat wasn't a compliment. So he went back to the dungeons and went back to the dark, however planning a revenge on the Princess.

Princess Pea: Princess Pea was the first to see the rat on the chandelier when her mother, The Queen was having a a banquet and rat fell right into her favourite food; soup. The Queen died of a heart attack, and Roscuro felt like it was all his fault. He took just one little memory, a spoon. After that, soup was banished from the Kingdom. However Princess Pea didn't forget her mother. When she met Despereaux her father, The King, wouldn't let her have him, because it was because of a rat that his lovely wife died.

Miggery Sow: Miggery Sow lost her mother when she was only 6 years old. She wanted her mother to live, and told her mother," mother I want...I want...I want you to live!" And the mother replied, "Who cares what you want Meg " And with those words she died. Then her father sold her, and Miggery said," Father, please don't leave me. Am I not your daughter? I want to be with you!" But her father replied," Who cares what you want Meg " And he sold his daughter. She was sold to a nasty man who would hit her on the ears, and her ears soon looked like cauliflowers. One day the Princess Pea passes, and Meg saw her beautiful clothes, on a beautiful white horse. And she said "I want to be a princess." "Who cares what you want Meg?" The mean man replied and boxed her on the ears. But one day, one of the Royal Men came to take away all the spoons and pots because soup was forbidden, and he decided to take Meg too. She was so excited, she thought she would become a princess! But when she came to the castle she told she would be a maid. And she badly wanted to be a Princess.

The whole story: Well when the Rat, Roscuro heard that Miggery wanted to become a Princess, he suddenly had a plan. He would ask Miggery to threaten the Princess with a knife, and ask her to come to the dungeons, where the rat could look at her as his source of light, forever, and he would tell Miggery she would become princess instead. Poor Miggery didn't understand, she just wanted to be a Princess. But Despereaux heard what would happen to his lovely Princess. He decided with a needle and a piece of thread he would be able to get the Princess out. He would be her hero, he would live happily after with her... but he had to get past the rats first. When Despereaux heard his Princess was gone, he let the rats take him to the dungeon and lead him to the Princess. Such was his love for the Princess he didn't fear the nasty rats. When he came to the Princess, the rat was asking Meg to tie Princess Pea up. But Meg was crying. She would never become a princess! She told the rat all over and over again," I want to become a Princess!" And of course the at's reply was," No one cares what you want Meg!" But the Princess cared. She asked Meg," Meg, what is it that you want?"  And Meg replied," I want...I want...I want my MA!" And Princess Pea couldn't deny that she felt the same thing. The rat had to admit that he wanted the Princess because she was the only light he knew, and the Princess had to forgive him. So as Despereaux wanted he lived happily ever after (except a mouse couldn't marry a Princess no matter how extraordinary the story).