Princess Academy

August 8, 2005
Readers enchanted by Hale's Goose Girl
are in for an experience that's a bit more earthbound in this latest fantasy-cum-tribute to girl-power. Cheerful and witty 14-year-old Miri loves her life on Mount Eskel, home to the quarries filled with the most precious linder stone in the land, though she longs to be big and strong enough to do quarry work like her sister and father. But Miri experiences big changes when the king announces that the prince will choose a potential wife from among the village's eligible girls—and that said girls must attend a new Princess Academy in preparation. Princess training is not all it's cracked up to be for spunky Miri in the isolated school overseen by cruel Tutor Olana. But through education—and the realization that she has the common mountain power to communicate wordlessly via magical "quarry-speech"—Miri and the girls eventually gain confidence and knowledge that helps transform their village. Unfortunately, Hale's lighthearted premise and underlying romantic plot bog down in overlong passages about commerce and class, a surprise hostage situation and the specifics of "quarry-speech." The prince's final princess selection hastily and patly wraps things up. Ages 9-up.

Starred review from October 1, 2005
Gr 5-9 -The thought of being a princess never occurred to the girls living on Mount Eskel. Most plan to work in the quarry like the generations before them. When it is announced that the prince will choose a bride from their village, 14-year-old Miri, who thinks she is being kept from working in the quarry because of her small stature, believes that this is her opportunity to prove her worth to her father. All eligible females are sent off to attend a special academy where they face many challenges and hardships as they are forced to adapt to the cultured life of a lowlander. First, strict Tutor Olana denies a visit home. Then, they are cut off from their village by heavy winter snowstorms. As their isolation increases, competition builds among them. The story is much like the mountains, with plenty of suspenseful moments that peak and fall, building into the next intense event. Miri discovers much about herself, including a special talent called quarry speak, a silent way to communicate. She uses this ability in many ways, most importantly to save herself and the other girls from harm. Each girl's story is brought to a satisfying conclusion, but this is not a fluffy, predictable fairy tale, even though it has wonderful moments of humor. Instead, Hale weaves an intricate, multilayered story about families, relationships, education, and the place we call home." -Linda L. Plevak, Saint Mary's Hall, San Antonio, TX"

Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 20, 2012
Readers of Hale's Newbery Honorâwinning Princess Academy (2005) will welcome this reunion with Miri and her schoolmates, as they descend Mount Eskel to help Britta prepare for her wedding to Prince Steffan. But while the palace in the capital city of Asland is as luxurious as their imaginations conjured, the working classes are hungry and tired of footing the royal family's bill. Revolution is in the air, and it sweeps Miri, now enrolled at the university, into its wake. Miri is torn in several ways: between two boys, between the educational advantages Asland offers and her home in the mountains, and between empathy for the "shoeless" and loyalty to Britta, who has become the focus of the revolutionaries' wrath. Hale handles these threads ably, although a scene in which the Eskelites stop a villain by using their ability to communicate through stoneâa homegrown talent called "quarry-speech"âhas a whiff of comic-book superhero that feels out of place. Still, this is a fine follow-up to a novel that already felt complete. Ages 10âup. Agent: Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary.