Princess Academy

Princess Academy has a rather misleading title. It sounds like chick lit, doesn’t it? Though it was highly recommended by a friend, I wasn’t going out of my way to look for it until I came across it secondhand. And then I noticed it was a Newbery Honor book. That means something! When I read it, I was pleased to find the chick-lit associations were unjust. This is a well-written fantasy (though “fantasy” seems to give the wrong impression, somehow — it’s not sword-and-sorcery at all). Miri lives with her family on Mount Eskel, an isolated mountain where the few inhabitants scrape out a living by quarrying linder, the beautiful stone that is used in palaces and temples. Miri’s mother died a week after she was born, and for show more some reason her father has never allowed her near the quarry though the other women and girls work there alongside the men. Miri is very small and petite, and struggles with feelings of inferiority and isolation from the other village girls.

The people of Mount Eskel are used to being ignored by the larger realm, and it is a shock to everyone when a messenger arrives to inform the people that the priests in the capital have divined that the Prince’s bride will come from Mount Eskel. They take all the girls of a certain age and set up a “princess academy” according to tradition in an abandoned temple about two hours’ walk from the village. Miri is forced into close contact with the girls she’s known all her life as they slowly adjust to the academy routine and the cruelty of their teacher Tutor Olana.

Miri and the other girls are torn about their chances of becoming the Prince’s bride; some wish to get away from Mount Eskel, but others do not want to leave the only home they have ever known. Though the girls are in competition to become the academy princess and win the Prince’s favor, they must learn to work together for their own wellbeing. Miri is instrumental in this as she experiments with “quarry-speech,” the mind-to-mind communication that of yet had only worked in the quarry itself. Can she defy Olana’s dislike and earn the highest honor the academy can give? And does she truly want everything that honor would bring?

I enjoyed this story quite a bit. Miri’s feelings are sensitively explored, and I found her a very believable heroine. Her thoughts about her unique position in the quarrying society, her disconnection from the other girls, and her feelings about her friend Peder are convincingly portrayed. The end (and the Prince’s eventual choice) seemed a bit rushed and too neatly tied-off, but looking back I can see the clues that were dropped throughout the narrative. The writing was very good, and this book deserved its Newbery Honor. Recommended! show less

It took me a while to read this book, despite liking everything else by Shannon Hale I've read. The premise seemed a bit hokey to me, and I was a bit skeptical of Hale being able to pull it off.

I was wrong. This is a really fun read and the premise is unique and interesting. I enjoyed it enough that I immediately picked up the next book.

This shouldn't be relegated to "girls only". I hope the boys read it too.

I'm not sure why this entered my radar, as I am not a middle grade girl, nor even a girl at all, nor do I care for any, but I'm glad it did. It's a surprisingly compelling novel. Here we find girls learning to be princesses not just in dainty etiquette ways, but also in those more important crafts of economics and diplomacy. But being from the middle of nowhere, they've actually had no education at all, and we start from the ground up: teaching teenagers to read.

The main character is a strong girl - mentally, not physically, leading to some insecurity she wrestles through - who really blossoms over the course of her year of education. She learns to apply what the show more girls are learning in practical ways, making their lives better and that of the entire village. She's not perfect, and grows over the course of the book, but her heart is in the right place, and she'd provide an excellent role model. show less

Princess Academy is all about Miri who lives on Mount Eskel where all the villagers have to work quarrying valuable linder from the mountain to survive. Her father won't let her work in the quarry, so Miri always struggles with feeling somehow less than the rest of her townspeople, despite being clever and brave. When royals arrive from the lowlands with news that the next princess of Danland will hail from Mount Eskel, the girls of the village are taken away to be schooled, polished, and made fit for a prince. At the academy, Miri struggles at first but then finds her chance to shine.

I'd heard plenty of great things about Shannon Hale's books, and if Princess Academy is any indication, they're all true. Princess Academy is tightly show more plotted, filled with brave, strong-willed girls for characters (most of all Miri!) who make the best of a complicated situation, and has an absolutely fantastic "knowledge is power" message that is never too heavy-handed. If you're anything like me, you might find yourself initially put off by the notion of a book about princesses in training. Don't be. This book and these would-be princesses defy expectations and stereotypes alike! show less

This was a reread, and I loved it just as much this second time around as I did when my much younger self read it the first time.

Fourteen-year-old Miri lives on a mountain where her people quarry a special stone that they supply to the rest of the kingdom. In their isolated village, they have little knowledge or care about what goes on in the lowlands. So the last thing anyone expects is for a royal messenger to arrive and announce that the next princess will be chosen from Mount Eskel.

An academy is established to train the rough mountain girls in everything they need to know to be princesses; in one year the prince will come and select his bride. But as Miri and the others know, the mountain is unpredictable. A lot can change in a show more year.

I love how this book subverted my expectations by taking a rather cliché premise and turning it into a story about the value of education and the power that comes from knowing your worth and banding together as a group. Everything about this book is perfect and you should read it!

And I’ve recently discovered it’s a series?! So those are going straight to the top of my TBR! show less

I got this book because I enjoyed The Actor and The Housewife so much, and so I sought out another book by Shannon Hale. I was not disappointed! This book is like a lovely, iridescent polished stone of linder, the fictional opaline marble quarried by the villagers of Mount Eskel. It has hidden facets from different angles that catch your eye and your heart and leave you with a sense of strength and beauty.

Most of the children in the village start work in the quarry at age 8, but Miri, named after the tiny pink flower that bloomed out of the cracks in the linder rocks, has never been allowed to work there. She thought it was because she was small for her age, and had been deemed inadequate. Now, at age 14, she learns she, along with all show more the other village girls between the ages of 12 to 17, must go to a “princess academy” to train to be acceptable as a potential bride for the Prince.

She takes leave of her father, older sister Marda, and lifelong crush Peder to make the 3-hour journey along with 19 other girls. While there, they are exposed not only to book learning for the first time, but to competition, cliques and jealousy, and unanticipated tests of courage and friendship. Only occasionally are they allowed to return to their village on breaks.

Miri may be one of the smallest children, but it is she who figures out the secret of the linder stone, and when the academy is in real danger, it is only her secret that can help save it.

Hale is a gifted writer of different genres that at first glance seem not to bear relation to one another. But all of her books are characterized by faith, good humor, and above all, the self-sufficiency and resilience of women and girls.

Her language often plays just the right note. At one village gathering, Peder has just kissed Miri on the cheek, then runs off:

"Miri did not move for three verses of the next bonfire song. A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth like a brook trout on a fishing line, but she was too staggered to give in to it."

In another instance, one of the girls at the academy, Katar, has just confessed to Miri about the source of her unhappiness:

"…Katar sobbed misery at her side. ’I’m sorry,’ Miri said again, hating how hollow those words sounded. Katar had given her a small gift by opening her heart and showing her pain. Miri tucked the moment in her own heart and hoped somehow to repay."

This book is not really about princesses, unless you define princess as a young lady who is not afraid to summon all of her assets to take on the world and make a difference.

Highly recommended. show less

Miri is small for her age. She lives with her family in a mountain community known for its special quarried stone. Life is a struggle and things are about to get worse as girls of a certain age are forced to go to the princess academy as the king's priests have divined that the newest queen will be living among them. That's the set up of Shannon Hale's Princess Academy.

While it may sound like a traditional set up for a fairy tale where the smallest, least useful member of a town goes off to charm the crown prince and become the next queen, it isn't. It's about the hardships of mountain life, about wanting to contribute to society, the frustration of not knowing the truth behind things and finally the power of education. What Miri and show more the other girls gain above and beyond the lessons in grace and polite society, is an education and most importantly, the ability to read.

Hale uses the seasons to show the mountain in all its forms and to create a believable sense of place. She also includes folk songs and stories to build an oral history that is later enhanced and challenged by what Miri and the others learn in their studies.

Although the book is set in only a small piece of the kingdom I came away with a sense of a much larger area. Shannon Hale excels at world building while keeping the story flowing and the characters developing.

I listened to the audio version of Princess Academy on our drive to Southern California earlier this year. I plan to go back and read the printed version later. show less