The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo

The Tale of Despereaux  is charming and well-written.  It belongs to the tradition of stories that teaches small people that they are valuable and powerful, provided they work hard and stay true to themselves.... At least, that seems to be the intention.

I am leery about expressing negativity about a gentle, soft-speaking, award-winning children's book, but some of the characterization rubbed me the wrong way.  The goodness of characters is related to who or what they are born.  The princess is pretty and kindhearted while the poor girl is overweight, incompetent, and stupid.  The mice are ethically neutral while the rats are innately evil.  As my two or so readers might suspect, the latter detail irritates me almost to the point of being unable to finish the book.  Stereotyping rats as evil may sound benign to most folks, but this perception contributes towards the casual mistreatment and cruelty that people unquestioningly direct towards this species. 

There are many unpleasantly misleading passages in this book, but one of the least warranted is this: "Rats are not beautiful creatures.  They are not even cute." 

We stridently disagree.