Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The Tale of Despereaux

                      
Dear Mrs.Zrihen,                  Reader’s Journal #4                                08/15/11
I just finished reading The Tale of Despereaux by Kate Dicamillo.  My favorite quote is when his father says “The last one, and he’ll be dead soon.  He can’t live.  Not with his eyes open like that.” Because the fathers wrong because Despereaux doesn’t die.  I read this book because my mom made me.  Two strategies I used before reading the passage were skim and scan, and read the title.  Two strategies I used during reading were read the captions and look at the pictures.  Two strategies I used after reading were thinking about the book and write a reader’s journal about it. 
This book is a fairy tale because a mouse can talk and talks to people like Gregory and Princess Pea.  The characters in this book are Princess Pea, King Phillip, chiaroscuro, Florence, Despereaux, Antoinette, Toulese, Merlot, Furlough, Alfred, Lester, mouse council, rats, Miggery Sow, pony, queen, soldier, Roscuro, and more.  The two main settings are in a dungeon and castle.  The exposition is that he is born.  The rising action is that he starts to break rules.  The climax is that he goes to the dungeon cause he would still break the rules if they gave him another chance.  The falling action is he gets help from a rat and gets out of the dungeon.  Then the resolution is he lives with his family and is able to talk to the princess.  The main conflict is that he is in love with Princess Pea and he talks to her and talking to human beings is not supposed to be done.  The conflict is internal and character vs. character.  I’m happy that Despereaux got out of the dungeon.  The theme is that Despereaux isn’t able to talk to Princess Pea but then he is allowed.  The moral of this story is you should be yourself.  The authors point of view is in third person.  The author’s purpose is to entertain you.  The author is biased.  There are similes, metaphors, onomonopea, oxymoron and hyperbole.  I knew this was a fiction book by just reading the title.  I would rate this book 8, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest.  I say eight because I had to skip a few pages. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Sincerely,
                                                                                                                                                                       

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