Princess Academy

Author:  Shannon Hale

Rating:  4

Summary:  Princess Academy is a trilogy which starts off with a young girl named Miri.  Traders from the Lowlands are arriving at her mountain for goods, and a message.  The priests have declared that the prince's future bride will be found on the mountain.  Every girl from twelve to seventeen is required to come to an academy, and train to be princesses for a year.  After a year, the prince will come and choose a bride.  Miri is one of the girls sent to the academy, and the plot of the first book begins.

  Palace of Stone begins, again, on the mountaintop, a year later.  Miri is getting ready to travel down to the Lowlands so that she can be a lady-in-waiting for Britta, and become a scholar.  When she gets to the Lowlands, she finds out that trouble is brewing amidst the capital's peoples, and Miri has to choose a side, before she is killed.

The Forgotten Sisters starts a year after the beginning of Palace of Stone.  Miri is starting her journey back up to the mountain, when she is recruited by the king and queen to go into the jungle, and train three royal sisters to be princess-like.

           Violence and gore:  Someone is shot in the stomach in Palace of Stone.

           Magic:  It is never called magic in the books, but there is a powerful telepathic linder that Miri finds, and learns how to manipulate in the series.  It can help others communicate from long distances, make you empathetic towards another person, and it stores memories inside the stone.

           Morals:  This book is not written by a Christian author.  This series was educational as well as thought provoking for me.  Throughout the series, it mentions different tools to use for debate, philosophy, critical thinking, and psychology.  It presents a question of, how important are our minds and opinions to society?  Also, a question is presented to Miri in Palace of Stone, that can be discussed between parent and child.  Here is the passage:

  "Now, imagine the Queens Castle catches fire.  Besides yourself, there is only one other person in the building- a confessed murderer of a child, chained in the dungeon.  If you save the murderer, he will not harm you but will live the remainder of his life in another prison, and the painting will burn.  If you save the painting, the man will burn.  Which would you choose- the murderer or the painting?"

  Miri goes through some trials, but by the end, she chooses her answer, which made me stop for a moment.  Her answer was that she would find a way to save both.  Somehow, someway, she would find a way to save both, because both are of value to her, and she knows that she as the ability to.  There is always a third option.

Girl, 6-8 years old, fantasy