Despereaux

In honor of what I like to call "Newbery Day" (yes, somewhere in the world, the winner of the 2013 Newbery medal already knows he or she has one, even though the rest of us need to wait another hour or so), I wanted to bring up one of my favorite medal winners: The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo, in light of my recent ramble about the juxtaposition of light and dark in art and literature.
The problem is...every time I sat down to write something, it seemed to detract from the masterful way that topic is handled in the book. Ultimately, Despereaux is about light and dark; about the soul's longing for light; about the darkness that we must all struggle through; about a few important ways that we can bring light to others.
But, again, every time I start citing examples, they seem like very poor reflections of the original. Then I was tempted to leave you with about a gajillion quotes from the book. Mark informed me that quoting entire chapters probably broke a few copyright laws. So...all I can leave you with is this one wonderful quote to brighten your day:

“Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell...a story. Make some light.”

Yeah...just go read the book (if you haven't already) and then you can come back and we can all talk about it in the comments. If you're listening to me instead of reading it, you're not spending your time as well as you could.

P.S. I'm currently reading Despereaux to Lucy and Zoe, and it has found it's place on the "best-read-aloud-ever" shelf, in their very critical judging. The only other books on that shelf, if you're interested, are Little House in the Big Woods (by Laura Ingalls Wilder, of course) and The Night Fairy (by Laura Amy Schlitz).