Tag: despereaux
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February 6, 2024
I woke up the other morning worried and sad. I thought about Despereaux–that mouse who is afraid and small but still manages to do the impossible. How does he do it? Love, of course. Love, and stories. The mouse is captivated by the words “once upon a time.” They promise him something. They promise me…
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November 7, 2023
“But Despereaux wasn’t listening to Furlough. He was staring at the light pouring in through the stained-glass windows of the castle. He stood on his hind legs and held his handkerchief over his heart and stared up, up, up into the brilliant light. ‘Furlough,” he said, “what is this thing? What are all these colors?…
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September 12, 2023
One day many years ago, an eight-year old boy said to me, “Aunt Kate, I’ve got a great idea for a book. It’s the story of a unlikely hero with exceptionally large ears.” That unlikely hero became a small mouse named Despereaux, and that eight-year old boy is now a grownup. I would like to…
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September 5, 2023
Twenty-two years ago, I started working on the story of an unlikely hero–a very small mouse named Despereaux. Writing is always hard for me, and telling this story was especially difficult. Somewhere in the writing process, a narrator’s voice showed up. This narrator was brash, confident, irreverent, and, also, comforting—this voice seemed to know what…
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June 27, 2023
Do you know this mouse? This little sculpture of Despereaux was given to me a long time ago. I was doing a signing at Book Passage in San Francisco and a young girl came through the line and presented the mouse to me. She had made him as a project for art class, and wanted…
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October 4, 2022
Last Monday evening, and then again on Saturday afternoon, I got to meet readers at in-person events. If you are tired of bad news, I have some good news for you: The kids who came through the signing line were kind and thoughtful and made very good eye contact. Each face I saw cheered me…