12) The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

The Tale of Despereaux is a children's novel, for ages 7-12, but I read it because I'm planning on reading a novel to my grade one class starting after March Break, and this was the novel they voted for.

However, I've decided I'm going to have to overrule their votes, and choose something else.

This story is just a little too "doom and gloom" for grade one kids.  It's the story of a little mouse, the only one to survive his litter, to a family who doesn't really believe he'll live long anyway.  He can read, and he falls in love with a story of a knight and a princess -- only to later come across Princess Pea who lives in the castle he calls home.  He falls in love with Princess Pea, but is banished to the dungeon so the rats can kill him because he broke the number one mouse rule -- do not be seen by the humans.

It continues on gloomily from there.  There's a creepy jailer in the dungeon who helps Despereaux, but there are some other characters who are pretty evil -- the rat, Roscuro, and the little girl Miggery Sow with the "cauliflower ears" she developed from years of abuse.

Yeah.  So not something I'm going to read to my going-on-seven-years-old students.  I thought it was going to be a fun little adventure novel -- nope.  It is the winner of the John Newberry Medal for American Literature for Children, but it's just not something I want to read to my class.

I think instead we'll read Charlotte's Web, it has its sad moments but it's a little more appropriate for this grade.

12 down, 88 to go!