Princess Academy, Shannon Hale’s third published novel, was also a Newbery Honor book a couple years ago, and a New York Times bestseller. It’s her only novel indicated for middle-grade readers, although it’s of course of the same quality as the books for older readers. Unlike the books reviewed the last two days, this novel is not set in Bayern; it’s in a country called Danland, and a province/town in it called Mount Eskel.

Miri is the younger daughter in her family; her mother died at her birth. The family, and the rest of the town, makes a living mining linder stone, but Miri, at fourteen, is still much too small to work in the mines. The women tend to be nearly as well-built as the men, and strength is prized in all the citizens. Miri feels she should be able to do something in the mines, but her father won’t let her even come down to find out. Before this conflict gets too far, an announcement comes from the king of Danland, that apparently his priests have divined that the future wife of the crown prince of Danland lives in Mount Eskel.

The girls on the mountain are all a bit — provincial, shall we say — but no matter where the priests divine, a Lady from the capital of Danland comes to teach all the eligible females how to be proper princesses. She just has a lot more work to do in this case. All the girls in the town between thirteen and eighteen are ordered to relocate for an entire year to a castle just outside town. There, they are taught things such as diplomacy, deportment, and dancing. The girl who does the best in the academy is called the Academy Princess, and she gets to dance with the prince first at the ball at the end of the year. Miri, being small and thinking that everyone considers her insignificant, is absolutely determined to become the Academy Princess.

Of course nothing goes quite that well, but luckily Miri is spunky and tough, as well as smart, and can traverse nearly any problem that comes her way. She’s really a lovely character; Hale shows us quite a bit of the inner workings of her mind and we can appreciate her logical and problem-solving abilities. Many of the other potential princesses are shown as her foils; Katar is her competition for the Academy Princess title, but she is not nearly so helpful to the ones in the class who are struggling. Britta is a lowlander orphan who moved to the mountain only a few years previous; she is still eligible for the Princess Academy, but many of the mountain girls ignore her since they don’t see her as very useful. Olana, the lady who teaches the Princess Academy, is another wonderfully complex character; the girls think she is unwontedly mean, but in some part she really believes in her job and is worried about the girl who will be the next Queen of Danland.

Miri’s story is one of a coming of age; her character must realize that she is not useless, that she has many talents, and that she is a great asset to the community. She fulfils this in many different ways; strangely enough, the linder that they mine is a major part of that — almost another character in itself. Many of the princesses in the academy come into themselves during their time there; it’s very interesting to see how they realize what they actually want.

The setting, basically a cold, rocky mountain and a cold, drafty castle, is well-described; Hale indicates that while Bayern is based on Germanic sources, Danland is more Scandinavian. The names of the countries, as well as the names of the characters, make this obvious: Danland has Miri, Marda, Britta, Bena, and Peder, and Bayern has Ani, Enna, Selia, and Conrad. Details about the mines and the weather make the landscape come alive.

Hale always writes lyrically, but this novel feels more like a folk tale than a fairy tale. The characters are all peasants, and mostly adolescent girls; they have their own slang and figurative language (such as “skinnier than a lowlander’s arm” for something useless). I very much enjoyed the novel, and would recommend it enthusiastically for middle readers and anyone above. I’ll also give it a full 5/5 stars.