Kate DiCamillo

Reader, you must know that an interesting fate (sometimes involving rats, sometimes not) awaits almost everyone, mouse or man, who does not conform.

Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.

Gloria put a bowl of stew in Peter's hands. "Eat," she said.Peter raised the spoon to his lips. He chewed. He swallowed.It had been a long time since he had eaten anything besides tiny fish and old bread.And so when Peter had his first bite of stew, it overwhelmed him. The warmth of it, the richness of it, knocked him backward; it was as if a gentle hand had pushed him when he was not expecting it. Everything he had lost came flooding back: the garden, his father, his mother, his sister, the promises that he had made and could not keep."What's this?" said Gloria Matienne. "The boy is crying.""Shhh," said Leo. He put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Shhh. Don't worry, Peter. Everything will be good. All will be well. We will do together whatever it is that needs to be done. But for now, you must eat."Peter nodded. He raised his spoon. Again he chewed and swallowed, and again he was overcome. He could not help it. He could not stop the tears; they flowed down his cheeks and into the bowl. "It is a very good stew, Madam Matienne. he managed to say. "Truly, it is an excellent stew.

Not much goes on in the mind of a squirrel.Huge portions of what is loosely termed "the squirrel brain" are given over to one thought:

He felt a wonderful certainty. The impossible, he thought, the impossible is about to happen again.

What is?', he said. 'What if?' is a question that belongs to magic.

But that is impossible," said Peter."Magic is always impossible," said the magician. "It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it is magic.

It is a horrible, terrible thing, the worst thing, to watch somebody you love die right in front of you and not be able to do nothing about it.

Listen, said Beverly. Let me tell you something. There is no Very Friendly Animal Center. That cat is long gone.

The world went on. People left and people died and people went to memorial services and put orange blocks of cheese into their purses. People confessed to you that they were hungry all the time. And then you got up in the morning and pretended that none of it had happened.

Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still. (page 103)

He said, 'I forgive you, Pa."And he said those words because he sensed that it was the only way to save his own heart, to stop it from breaking in two. Despereaux, reader, spoke those words to save himself.

This is a wonderful joke to play upon a prisoner, to promise forgiveness.

There was something scary about watching adults sleep. It was as if no one at all were in charge of the world.

And Rob knew then that he had picked the right person to tell.

The April sun, weak but determined, shone through a castle window and from there squeezed itself through a small hole in the wall and placed one golden finger on the little mouse.

the story is not a pretty one. there is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose. Everything, as you well know (having lived in this world long enough to have figured out a thing or two for yourself), cannont always be sweetness and light.

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