Despereaux
A good friend recently introduced me to The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. It's subtitled Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread, and it's a wonderful, short, but complex children's novel.
The story's quite sad (Despereaux's mother names him for the French word meaning despair), but it deals with love, hope, and forgiveness. The narrator says all three are powerful, wonderful things. "And ridiculous things, too."
I don't want to say much more about the story, because it would ruin it, but here are a couple more of my favorite quotes:
"Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, man or mouse, who does not conform." -Narrator
"Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark."
-Gregory the Jailer
The story's quite sad (Despereaux's mother names him for the French word meaning despair), but it deals with love, hope, and forgiveness. The narrator says all three are powerful, wonderful things. "And ridiculous things, too."
I don't want to say much more about the story, because it would ruin it, but here are a couple more of my favorite quotes:
"Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, man or mouse, who does not conform." -Narrator
"Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark."
-Gregory the Jailer