Academy Awardnominee Sylvain Chomet is attached to direct an animated adaptation of KateDiCamillo's 2004 Newbery Award winning children's book The Tale OfDespereaux for UniversalPictures.

The book, whosefull name is The Tale Of Despereaux: Being The Story Of A Mouse, A Princess,Some Soup, And A Spool Of Threadim, has resided on the New York Times bestseller list sinceSeptember 2003 and has sold more than one million copies to date.

The storycentres on the escapades of a misfit mouse, the princess he cherishes, abumbling servant girl who longs to be a princess, and an unhappy rat whoschemes to leave the darkness of the dungeon for light.

Gary Ross andAllison Thomas will produce through their Larger Than Productions, andUniversal's vice chairman of worldwide production Mary Parent and vicepresident of production Damien Saccani will oversee the project for the studio.

Chomet receivedtwo Oscar nominations earlier this year for The Triplets Of Belleville. He is also producing two films at hisScotland-based Studio Django, one for Dimension Films and one called Barbacoa with 4-Way Pictures.