Princess Academy
Shannon Hale
Bloomsbury
Fiction, YA Fantasy
****
DESCRIPTION: From the high, stony slopes of Mount Eskel, the locals carve slabs of the miraculous stone known as linder, using their unique abilities to "listen" for
suitable beds beneath the slag and "feel" where to place each blow. Man and woman, boy and girl, everyone in the village works the linder quarries... all except the old, the
crippled, and Miri, an undersized girl whose father forbade her from ever setting foot in the quarry pits long ago. So she can only listen to them singing their working chants,
and once in a while catch a hint in her mind of the quarry-speak, the telepathic speech used to communicate amid the deafening din of hammer and chisel, and pretend that it
doesn't hurt to be left alone. This world of slag and quarry, of snowbound winters and short, sweet summers, is all Miri has known, but Mount Eskel is just one tiny corner of the
vast kingdom of Danland, a fact she is unexpectedly awakened to when a royal messenger arrives. The prince of Danland must have a bride, and after consulting the creator god the
priests declared she must be found among the villagers of Mount Eskel. So, by royal decree, all the proper-aged girls must attend a special Princess Academy in order to train
them up from impossibly backwards mountain girls to worthy company for a sophisicated lowlander prince. In one year, Prince Steffan himself will travel to the Mount Eskel academy
to choose his bride at a special ball, to be attended by successful graduates only.
Miri never thought she'd want more than to tend the goats, help her family, and maybe, just maybe, earn her father's trust to work the linder stone. Like many in the village, she
distrusts the Princess Academy's stated goal, as no lowlander prince would ever consent to marry anyone from her backwater home - as if any sensible mountain girl would want to
leave Mount Eskel and live among such arrogant people anyway. But royal decree brooks no argument, and like it or not Miri and her friends find themselves herded off to a
makeshift school headed by a disagreeable lowlander teacher. Soon, despite her misgivings, whole new worlds open before her at the academy, and Miri starts to wonder if perhaps
she really would be happier seeing other sights, traveling to other lands... even, in her wildest of dreams, wearing a royal crown.
REVIEW: On the whole, I found it a good book. The simple act of learning opens doors before the mountain girls; each reacts to their transformation differently, from distrustful indifference to wild-eyed hunger. The potential prize of a crown, even if it means marriage to a strange lowlander, also brings out the best and worst in the girls Miri knew all her life, or at least she thought she knew them all her life. If Miri should perhaps have been quicker on the uptake about several people and ideas, if she might have realized a bit sooner just who her real friends might be and what their true motives were... well, then she's no more Plot-Conveniently slow than many otherwise clever young adult fantasy heroines. The story itself throws in some unnecessary hitches and kinks to draw out the length, leading to a fairly obvious conclusion, but some of the other consequences of the Princess Academy were slightly less obvious and somewhat more satisfying to read. I almost smell the faintest hint of sequel potential, here, as hidden aspects of the linder stone and the mountainfolk's ties to the land come through.
You might also enjoy:
The Secret School (Avi, YA Fiction - Farm children take charge of their own education after their teacher leaves and the schoolhouse is locked)
The Throwaway Princess (Elinor Busby, YA Fiction - A princess is passed over because of a physical deformity)
Dragon's Keep (Janet Lee Carey, YA Fiction - A princess with a dragon-talon finger lives in a deeply superstitious realm)
The Tale of Despereaux (Kate DiCamillo, YA Fiction - A mouse defies his own kind by being brave and befriending a princess)
Fly By Night (Frances Hardinge, YA Fiction - A girl lives in a divided realm where free speech is forbidden)
Fairest (Gail Carson Levine, YA Fiction - A girl with sharp wits and a beautiful voice feels shamed by her ugly appearance)
The Paper Bag Princess (Robert Munsch, YA Fiction - A princess must rescue her boyfriend from a dragon)
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia Wrede, YA Fiction - A princess in a fairy-tale world would rather live with dragons than become a simpering stereotype)
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