The Tale of Despereaux

There's no point in my telling you how wonderful this is.  I'm sure you've at least heard of it if not read it for yourself.

But I feel I've been missing a rich vein for blogging when it comes to the read-alouds I share with my daughter.  She was delighted with this one, of course, and it's a perfect read-aloud.  I didn't go crazy with the voices but tried to give the humans slightly more booming voices than the mice/rats.

Jeffrey the Jailer got a kind of dumb-guy Looney Tunes voice.  Roscuro had a kind of Steve Buschemi/Joe Pesci oiliness.  Botticelli Remorso had a soothing Godfather-esque tone.  Cook was a bit Cockney.  Of course Antoinette was the dramatic French lady you'd expect.

The chapters were short, which Harper loves because I can finally say yes to her begging for "just one more chapter!?"  With this one it's more like five or so chapters a night.

It was weird because I finished it with her last night, but I'm only in the middle of it at school with a class.  They were a bit bored today until Roscuro fell into the Queen's soup.  I died dramatically which perked them right up.

P.S. Last book movie combo Harper and I did was How to Train Your Dragon.  Both excellent but very different.  I don't have as high of hopes for the movie version of this one...

The Tale of Despereaux: Special Signed Edition: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread

How to Train Your Dragon Book 1