The Tale of Despereaux was the first long form fiction book that my wife and i chose to read aloud to our two older children, Natty (8) and Micah (5). Now, don’t misunderstand, we have read a lot of books to our kids. However, they have been more of the Ladybug Girl variety, shorter stories with lots of bright, colorful illustrations. After seeing some posts on Facebook about a friend reading real books to their kids, like The Hobbit, we thought that we would give it a try. It was a little intimidating at first, but as with many things, I needed to follow the inspiration and just do it. I want our kids to have great memories connected to reading and this would be a way to create some of those memories. Plus, I felt inspired personally to make sure that they know how important they are to me by giving them this time every single night where they are my only focus.
I chose this book because it was highly recommended on a Goodreads.com list of great read-aloud books plus we’d seen the movie years ago and seemed to remember enjoying it.
I started out reading the book on April 2, 2013 before bedtime. I was the primary reader for most of it, but Andi had the great idea to let Natty take some turns reading as well. It served as an educational experience for her and we could see improvement in her reading even after just a few weeks of reading aloud. Near the end, Andi joined us in the reading aloud and that made it even better. She has a great vocal delivery style, really acting out the words and I found myself getting lost in the story as she read. Â We finished the book last night, having taken 22 days to read 256 pages together. I am especially proud of the fact that we only took one night off out of those 22 and by the end, we were reading 20 pages a night.
As for the book itself, it was indeed a good read-aloud book. The chapters were short which meant that you had ample places to stop reading for the night. The story was suitable for young kids, although our older child connected with it more than Micah did. There are some dark sections, especially when dealing with Roscuro and the dungeons that you have to navigate through. I was a little worried that it might be too scary for them but we got through without any nightmares or crying. It was a good story of wonder, love and the power of forgiveness. I am looking forward to watching the movie again now that the story is fresh in our minds.
The kids, especially Natty, really enjoyed the book and they began asking every night when we were going to read. We successfully started a new ritual, one that we will stick with for a long time I believe.
