50 Fun Facts About The Tale of Despereaux

Which food does the king outlaw after the queen's death in The Tale of Despereaux?

Soup was the queen's favorite dish, and she died of fright when a rat dropped into her bowl of it. The grieving king outlawed rats as well.

What does Despereaux carry as a sword when he returns to the dungeon to rescue Princess Pea?

A sewing needle from the mouse Hovis is his only weapon. He later holds its point to Roscuro's chest and chooses not to strike.

Besides enormous ears, which oddity marks the newborn Despereaux Tilling out from other mice?

Open eyes at birth alarm his family, because mouse pups normally arrive blind. He is also the only one of his litter to live.

Miggery Sow is sold in The Tale of Despereaux for a tablecloth, cigarettes and which animal?

A hen sealed the bargain, and the seller, her own parent, never once looked back. The same red tablecloth later ends up as a rat's cape.

From which perch does Roscuro fall into the queen's bowl at the banquet in The Tale of Despereaux?

A chandelier gave Roscuro his view of the party until Princess Pea shouted the word rat. He let go, and the queen died of fright on the spot.

Miggery Sow's kitchen knife costs both Despereaux and Roscuro which part of their bodies?

Their tails both fall to Mig's blade. She was aiming to kill the mouse on kitchen orders, and later swung at the rat to protect that same mouse.

What does the jailer Gregory ask of Despereaux in return for saving him from the dungeon's rats?

A story is his price, because down in the dark a good tale is the nearest thing to light. No condemned mouse had ever been spared before.

Why does the Mouse Council mistake the returning Despereaux for a ghost in Book the Fourth?

He is coated in flour after sleeping on a pantry sack, so the mice who sent him to die watch a white phantom walk into their meeting.

How does The Tale of Despereaux end for Despereaux and Princess Pea once the dungeon rescue is over?

They become friends, since the narrator rules out a wedding between a mouse and a human. He earns a seat beside her at the royal table instead.

Which instrument is the king playing for Princess Pea when Despereaux first creeps out to listen?

A guitar accompanies the king's bedtime songs for his daughter, and the music draws Despereaux so close that he ends up sitting at the royal foot.

Which relative of Despereaux Tilling, hidden under a black hood, delivers him to the dungeon stairs?

Furlough, his older brother, is one of the two hooded escorts. He refuses Despereaux a last word with the princess and pushes him down the steps.

What does Lester Tilling use to summon the Mouse Council over Despereaux's behavior?

A thimble drum with leather stretched across it sounds the alarm. Days later, sick with guilt over his son's sentence, Lester destroys it.

What do the mice tie around Despereaux's neck to mark him as condemned to the dungeon?

A red thread marks every mouse sent down to the rats, and the dungeon floor is littered with scraps of it. Princess Pea wonders why hers keeps vanishing.

As Despereaux is led to the dungeon, Antoinette Tilling calls a one-word goodbye in which language?

French is Antoinette's native tongue, and her farewell, adieu, gives the chapter its title. Lester had already blamed her foreign blood for their son's odd ways.

Which sight in the castle makes young Despereaux ask his brother whether they are in heaven?

A stained-glass window stops him in the middle of a scurrying lesson. He would rather stare at colored light than learn to hide from humans.

During the king's bedtime concert, what does Despereaux hold out to Princess Pea?

A handkerchief is his gallant offer when she cries at being told she cannot keep him. The appalled king then orders the mouse out of the room.

When Princess Pea first points out Despereaux, what does the king insist the tiny creature must be?

A bug is the king's guess, because Despereaux is so small. Once he accepts that the visitor is a mouse, his mood turns sour.

How does the sickly young Despereaux Tilling react whenever he hears a loud noise?

He faints, and he does it again in front of the Mouse Council on hearing his sentence. Antoinette passes out in turn when she learns where he is going.

What does Merlot Tilling take her little brother Despereaux to the castle library to learn?

How to nibble paper is the lesson, with tips on the tastiest parts of a page. Instead the marks turn into words for him, and he refuses to eat them.

In The Tale of Despereaux, the rat Roscuro's full name, Chiaroscuro, comes from which art form?

Painting gave the world the word chiaroscuro, the play of bright against shadow, and Book the Second borrows it as a title. The rat is born in the dark but craves the glow upstairs.

In The Tale of Despereaux, what held up to young Roscuro's face first sparks his love of light?

A lit match is waved in his face by the jailer as a warning, but the flame leaves the young rat hungry for more. Rats are supposed to love the dark.

In The Tale of Despereaux, what does the rat Botticelli Remorso swing while lecturing Roscuro?

A locket shaped like a heart is his toy as he argues that making prisoners suffer is the whole point of a rat's life. Roscuro suspects the point is light.

In The Tale of Despereaux, the prisoner who once traded away his daughter is jailed for which crime?

Stealing cows, six of them, put him in the dungeon, yet he tells Roscuro the trade he made years earlier was worse. The cloth from that trade is tossed in after him for warmth.

What is the name of the queen whose death at a banquet sets off The Tale of Despereaux?

Rosemary dies before the main events begin, yet her death causes nearly all of them: a grieving husband's strange laws, a rat's grudge and a daughter's sorrow.

In which fictional kingdom, in a castle full of mice and rats, is The Tale of Despereaux set?

Dor is the kingdom, a name that sounds like the word for golden in the tongue of Antoinette Tilling. Its glittering castle sits on top of a dungeon run by rats.

What does Roscuro pick up while fleeing the banquet and wear on his head in The Tale of Despereaux?

A spoon becomes his crown as he slinks back to the dungeon swearing revenge. With a stolen tablecloth for a cape, he looks like a tiny king.

In Book the Third of The Tale of Despereaux, what does Miggery Sow call the man who buys her?

Uncle is the only name she ever gives him. He sets her to cooking and cleaning, and hits her ears whenever he is displeased.

Which exclamation of Miggery Sow's starts the title of Book the Third of The Tale of Despereaux?

Gor begins the full title of Book the Third, which steps back in time to follow Miggery Sow from the age of six.

Which animals is Miggery Sow tending when the royal family rides past in The Tale of Despereaux?

Sheep fill the field where Mig, on her seventh birthday, watches Princess Pea ride by on a white horse and first dreams of wearing a crown herself.

A soldier takes Miggery Sow from her master in The Tale of Despereaux because the king bans what?

Slavery is against the law of the land, so the soldier collecting kitchenware under a newer decree takes the girl as well. She becomes a paid servant at the castle.

What is Princess Pea making when Miggery Sow first visits her room in The Tale of Despereaux?

A tapestry showing the history of her world is her project, and it includes the queen she lost. The king is later found weeping with it in his hands.

In The Tale of Despereaux, what does Miggery Sow say when Princess Pea asks what she truly wants?

Her mother is all Mig wants, and nobody had ever asked before. The princess misses hers too, and the two girls stop working against each other.

How does the jailer smuggle Despereaux out of the dungeon on the meal tray Miggery Sow carries?

Wrapped in a napkin, the mouse rides back up to the kitchen unseen, after the jailer whispers that he should return to the light.

Tumbling off the tray in the castle kitchen, Despereaux lands in a measuring cup of what?

Oil coats the mouse from ears to feet, and it saves him: he slips straight out of Mig's fingers when she picks him up to finish him off.

How does Despereaux respond when Lester Tilling begs pardon for sending him to the dungeon?

He forgives him, a choice the narrator says keeps his own heart from breaking. The rest of the Mouse Council refuses to apologize, so he walks out.

Which castle servant does Despereaux catch secretly breaking one of the king's laws at midnight?

The cook has a forbidden pot bubbling on the stove. Relieved that the intruder is only a mouse, she lets him taste it and holds the dungeon door for him.

In The Tale of Despereaux, what does Roscuro chew through so the jailer gets lost in the dungeon?

His ankle rope is the jailer's lifeline back to the dungeon door, and without it he wanders the maze until he dies of fright. That clears the way for a kidnapping.

In Despereaux's dream after escaping the dungeon, which gleaming object turns out to be empty?

A suit of armor with no knight inside makes him weep, since it seems to say nobody is coming to the rescue. Later he decides it was waiting for him.

How does Roscuro reach Princess Pea's bedroom on the kidnapping night in The Tale of Despereaux?

In Mig's pocket is where he rides, and she also carries a candle and the kitchen knife. He has to keep reminding her to whisper.

Which American author wrote The Tale of Despereaux, first published by Candlewick Press?

Kate DiCamillo wrote it as her third novel. Before her first was accepted, she had collected 473 rejection letters from publishers.

Which major American award for children's literature did The Tale of Despereaux win?

The Newbery Medal went to the mouse's tale in 2004, and its author later became one of the few writers to win that prize twice.

Before The Tale of Despereaux, which debut novel by the same author later became a 2005 film?

Because of Winn-Dixie made her name in 2000. She wrote it while working in a book warehouse, getting up before her shifts to put words on the page.

Which squirrel-inspired novel won the author of The Tale of Despereaux a second top prize?

Flora & Ulysses took the 2014 prize, ten years after the mouse's win, and made its author one of very few writers honored twice.

Which artist drew the black-and-white illustrations for the first edition of The Tale of Despereaux?

Timothy B. Ering supplied the black-and-white drawings, and twenty years on he added a new piece of art to the 2023 anniversary edition.

The Tale of Despereaux began when a child asked its author to write about which kind of character?

An unlikely hero was the request, and the result was a sickly, undersized mouse in love with music and a human princess.

Which actress voices Princess Pea in the 2008 animated film of The Tale of Despereaux?

Emma Watson voices the princess in a film only loosely based on the book. It adds a magic genie who lives in the chef's pot.

Which actress serves as the narrator of the 2008 animated film of The Tale of Despereaux?

Sigourney Weaver supplies the voice-over, standing in for the book's narrator, who keeps breaking off to speak to the reader directly.

Why does the king refuse to believe Despereaux's warning that Princess Pea is in the dungeon?

He distrusts all rodents, lumping mice in with the rats he blames for his wife's death. The snub convinces Despereaux to go down and rescue her himself.

In The Tale of Despereaux, who ends up treating Miggery Sow like the princess she never becomes?

Her father, freed from the dungeon once the princess learns who he is, spends the rest of his days making up for selling her.

Which Hollywood studio released the 2008 animated film of The Tale of Despereaux?

Universal Pictures released it in December 2008. Made for about $60 million, it earned roughly $90 million worldwide and was judged a disappointment.