Helen Martin’s Blog

“The truth is a river where the strong can swim in deep; and the weak and the broken can walk across so easily.”

That is a line not from the above titled story, but from a [Caedmon's Call](http://www.caedmonscall.com/) song (called Beautiful Mystery.) I wish all children’s books had that marriage of simplicity and depth, and told the truth as well as [The Tale of Despereaux](http://www.katedicamillo.com/books/tale.html). This isn’t just because I don’t want to be bored while I read aloud to our kids (although, it’s true, I don’t) but I want them each to keep getting something new - deeper - out of the stories they love as they hear them over and over again. This beautiful tale is one from which a child almost couldn’t help to continue to glean.

It’s the story of an ["unlikely hero with exceptionally large ears"](http://www.katedicamillo.com/books/tale.html) - a mouse named Despereaux who falls in love with a Princess named Pea (pronounced with one syllable.) This was the first time I have read anything by author [Kate DiCamillo](http://www.katedicamillo.com/), but it will not be the last. I don’t know if she intended to weave Truth like a red thread throughout her story - but it’s there. Love, disappointment, honor, consequences, duty, betrayal and forgiveness. Yikes. All there. All believable (in as much as a fairy tale can be.) The descriptions of light and darkness - as facts and ideas - are so well written you can feel them. And she has written the best description of forgiveness from the human perspective that I think I have ever read.

Even though some of the characters are hurt by others in the story, somehow the author manages to write these scenes wisely and gently enough so as not to harm a reader of a tender age; instead she awakens empathy in him, (and even defines the word in a lovely way for her reader.)

In [this PBS interview](http://childrensbooks.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan%2Djune04/tale%5F03%2D30.html%23) the author said that children know that the world is not only “sweetness and light” and they need to be respected for that knowledge in what is presented to them to read. I agree with that. But who can I trust not to take that ethic and use it as a license to relieve my children of what innocence they do have, or of their sense of security? Well, so far, it looks like I can trust Kate DiCamillo. At least for our oldest three children (6, 8, and 10.)

I’ll qualify that last statement a little bit, because I am distinguishing between disturbing facts and frightening descriptions. For instance, I judged that six year old Jack could handle knowing that the character Mig was given many a “good clout to the ear” without it turning into a night terror (even though it made both of us cry.) However, the thought of the bones of mice and men on a dungeon floor could have had quite a different effect. So I practiced my usual method of editing out a word or two as necessary, for his sake. (I started reading it to all the kids, but really, it was only suitable for the oldest three, with very few omitted phrases.)

I don’t know if I can convey this rightly, but I want to try. Great writing chokes me up. I don’t mean tear-jerking plot lines, or even the majestic descriptions of mountain and meadow. I mean, simply, a phrase perfectly turned. It can describe a window, or how the light streaming through it awakened a yearning in the heart of a rat - it matters not. It could be about a string bean, really, but if it’s well written, it gets to me. I wish I knew what great writing was before I read it - I don’t. But I know if afterwards. It’s something that doesn’t happen very often in this world so overstocked with the mediocre, but there were many times during this tale when my voice broke as I read. That’s a big deal to me.

(Oh, and there’s soup in the story, too. For my part, any writer who understands the beauty and power of soup deserves a certain amount of my trust from the very start.)