2007 fantasy novel by Shannon Hale
Princess Academy is a fantasy novel exploring themes of families, relationships, and education by Shannon Hale published on June 16, 2005, by Bloomsbury. It tells the story of fourteen-year-old Miri who attends a princess academy that will determine who wins the hand of the prince. The book was named a 2006 Newbery Honor winner[1] as well as a New York Times Bestseller. It is the first in the Princess Academy series, followed by Princess Academy: Palace of Stone and Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters.
Development
Hale first came up with the idea for Princess Academy while writing her first novel, The Goose Girl; her husband, Dean Hale, was reading a fiction book about a tutor to a princess, which prompted Hale to develop the idea of a group of "princesses in training".[2] Her first draft didn't include the concept of "quarry-speech" and was added in the second. Hale drew from the similar concepts of speaking through wind, fire, and water found in her Books of Bayern series to develop this idea of communicating through stone. She has said that the fictional nation of Danland is "in the same world as Bayern but on a different continent and in a different time".[3] Writing the songs that appear at the beginning of each chapter took Hale about a year. She also drew upon her own experience growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah, when writing about Mount Eskel and used medieval Scandinavian names for many of the characters.[3]
Plot summary
Miri is a fourteen-year-old girl from Mount Eskel, an isolated territory of Danland, who has never been allowed to work with the rest of the villagers in the quarry that keeps the community alive. The quarry workers cut linder (a fictional type of expensive stone), which they sell to the lowlander traders for food and other necessities. Because her father refuses to allow her to work in the quarry, she feels like an outcast in the community and cut off from the culture focused around a shared working life. However, Miri helps by bargaining with the traders. She is very close to her father and her sister, Marda, as well as a boy named Peder, for whom she harbors feelings.
One day, a messenger from the king unexpectedly arrives in the village and announces that the nation's priests have determined that, despite the lack of education provided for the villagers and the prejudice that exists between the mountain villagers and the lowlanders, the crown prince's future bride will come from Mount Eskel. A "princess academy" is established nearby to train the potential princesses, with compulsory attendance for every girl age twelve to eighteen. At the end of the year, the prince will meet the girls and choose his princess from among them.
Miri and the other girls attend the academy, where they meet a strict teacher, Tutor Olana. They first learn how to read and write, then move on to subjects such as the history of Danland, poise, conversation, and commerce. All the girls are eager to please the prince and win a comfortable life for themselves and their families. Miri makes friends with some of the other girls, including Britta, a lowlander who had recently moved to Mount Eskel. Miri's new knowledge of commerce helps the village improve their situation in trading with the lowlanders. After they break Tutor Olana's rules and flee home to the village for spring holiday, the girls use what they learned of diplomacy to negotiate a more bearable living arrangement with their teacher, including weekly visits home. Miri also begins to explore the mechanics of quarry-speech, a form of unspoken communication used by natives to Mount Eskel. Miri discovers her ability to use it outside of the quarry—though this was previously thought impossible—and does so to assist the other girls in their final exam. As a result, they all pass and qualify to attend the ball and meet the prince. On their final visit home before the big event, Miri's sister Marda gets in an accident while working in the quarry and breaks her leg. Miri runs to help, but her father yells for her to leave the quarry; he never allows her in it. Upset, Miri runs into Peder's mother, Doter, who tells her the real reason Miri's father never lets her into the quarry: Miri's mother was involved in an accident very similar to Marda's shortly before she gave birth to Miri and died. This encounter helps Miri realize her father truly does love her. Once back at the academy, her conversation with the other girls reveals that they never judged her for not working in the quarry alongside them. Miri realizes her feelings of resentment have dissipated, and that she now has the potential, with her new education, to become whatever she wishes.
Miri's excellence in her studies and her willingness to help her peers despite bitter competition eventually earn her the title of academy princess and the privilege of having the first dance with the prince. At the academy ball, the prince dances with every girl except Britta, who is ill, and generally acts very distant. Later in the evening, he takes a walk with Miri and shows a more human side. However, he leaves without choosing a bride. Once the prince has left, promising to return in the spring to announce his choice, bandits attack the academy hoping to hold the princess-to-be hostage and demand a ransom. Miri uses her new knowledge of quarry-speech to call for help from the village. At first no one seems to hear her, but eventually she is able to contact Peder. The villagers come to the academy through the blizzard, and the girls escape from the bandits and spend the whole winter at home with their families. In the spring, the prince returns and chooses to marry Britta—whom he has known since childhood—and names Mount Eskel an official province. Britta promises Miri the opportunity to travel to the capitol and continue her studies. The book ends with Peder and Miri admitting their feelings toward each other, and Miri choosing to stay in Mount Eskel with her family for a while.
Companion Books
A sequel, Princess Academy: Palace of Stone, was published in August 2012. The story follows Miri and her princess academy friends going to Asland to help the future princess, Britta, prepare for her wedding. Miri is also allowed to attend school at the Queen's Castle and befriends a number of students, whose apparent sophistication and exciting lives fascinate her until she learns of their frightening plans to overthrow the monarchy. Torn between loyalty to the princess and her new friends' ideas, between an old love and a new crush, and between her small mountain home and the bustling city, Miri looks to find her own way in this new place.[4]
Subsequently, a third book was published in February 2015, titled Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters. After spending a year in Asland, Miri is looking forward to returning to Mount Eskel and reuniting with her family, but is unexpectedly ordered by the king to become the tutor at a princess academy for three royal sisters: Astrid, Felissa, and Susanna. Miri reluctantly agrees to journey to Lesser Alva, a swampy and remote territory where the sisters are residing when she learns that her beloved Mount Eskel could be lost in an impending war against a neighboring nation of Stora and that the successful marriage of one of sisters to Stora's king may save Asland. Miri is forced to endure the challenge of educating the three independently minded girls against suspicious locals and the natural dangers of the swamp land, while discovering that there is a greater mystery regarding the true identities of the three girls and the war looming closer than she realizes.
Adaptations
The novel was adapted into a play by Lisa Hall Hagen which premiered May 29, 2015, at Brigham Young University's Pardoe Theatre.[5] The play was nominated for an AML Award for drama.[6]
The Kensington Theatre Company in South Jordan, Utah, adapted the novel into a musical, featuring Scandinavian folk music.[7]
Reception
Princess Academy appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list in February 2008 for children's best sellers.[8] It also appeared on the Children's Fiction Bestsellers list in Publishers Weekly in August 2007.[9] Anne O'Malley wrote in a Booklist review that "Hale nicely interweaves feminist sensibilities" into Princess Academy.[10] A School Library Journal review described the book as "an intricate, multilayered story about families, relationships, education, and the place we call home".[11] Kirkus Reviews wrote: "the climax ... is a bit forced, but everything else is unalloyed joy".[12]
