The Tale of Despereaux

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A Newberry Award winning Fantasy book for children written by Kate DiCamillo. The book itself is split into four separate stories: "A Mouse Is Born", "Chiaroscuro", "Gor! The Tale of Miggery Sow," and "Recalled to the Light". The first three introduce the three threads of the plot and then they are all brought together in the final story.

  1. A Mouse Is Born: The story's protagonist is Despereaux, the only survivor of his litter. He was born with open eyes, huge ears, and no fear. When his father takes him to the library to eat books, he ends up reading a fairy tale about a knight and princess, instead.
  2. Chiaroscuro: A rat born innocent among the evil rats of the dungeon. An encounter with a jailer led to his whiskers being singed off. This event led to his desire for light and goodness, eventually leading him to leave the dungeons and explore the world above. Unfortunately, after some misunderstandings he's effectively banished back to the dungeon and for this he craves revenge.
  3. Gor! The Tale of Miggery Sow: Mig was sold into slavery at a young age for some cigarettes, a hen, and a red tablecloth. The man she called "uncle" beat her about the ears until she was nearly deaf. A chance encounter with Princess Pea led to her desire to become a princess.
  4. Recalled to the Light: Here things come to a head, as Chiaroscuro manipulates the mentally unstable Mig into doing his bidding and Despereaux is able to come into his own as the hero of his very own fairy tale.

The books were adapted to a CG animated film in 2008, which Disneyfied many of the darker elements while still keeping much of the original fairy tale feel of the book.

Tropes used in The Tale of Despereaux include:
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