Princess Academy

Shannon Hale's fantasy tells how Miri, a 14-year-old living in a mining village, comes into her own, saving the village from poverty and possible disaster and finding her place in the world. Narrator Laura Credidio's voice is pleasant and soothing, and her narration is well paced. The ensemble's acting is good, and the girls who attend the academy, including Miri, are uniformly charming. The casting reveals special care and intelligence in that the voices give dimension to the characters that the story bears out, a remarkable vocal foreshadowing that is due, of course, to the actors' skill. This sweet story will primarily interest 10-14- year-old girls, but even boys may enjoy it (though they may not admit it). W.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

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.