I thought Ms. Hale created a lovely book.  The Princess Academy was a bit of a fairy tale yet it was practical.  I know that sounds a bit confusing but I will explain…

It begins in a little town called Mount Eskel with the girl named Miri.  One day there is a royal announcement -  all girls from the ages of 13 to 19 had attend the Academy for one year.  The Academy was to teach poise, manners, dance, how to have a good conversation with others, and discipline [these are all good, practical life lessons for us all to know].

After a year at the Academy, the girls would have the chance to meet the Prince Steffan and he would pick his bride.  Miri  wanted to refuse because she did not want to live in a castle and be pampered for the rest of her life.  Miri wanted to work in the quarry, just like her family did.  (In the quarry, the family dug linder to make money). 

One of the most important things Miri learns while at the Academy is that her family and friends are being cheated.  Her family gets paid only three silver coins for their linder when they should be receiving one gold coin (four silver coins equals one-quarter of a one gold coin).  Miri goes home and tells her family and friends that they are not being paid appropriately and they come up with a plan.  What they are going to do is that the girls are going to confront Steffan that they know they are not being paid fairly.  When Steffan is confronted he does not seem to care.  The the girls then decide that no one wants to be his bride since he does not seem to care about his country or his people.

The only issue I had with this book was that a couple of times the story was moving so fast, that I had to reread the pages more than once so that I could fully understand what was taking place.  One of the things I liked most about this book was  the good vocabulary words used.  The words were not too hard for me to understand yet there were a few times I was a bit challenged.  I especially liked that, most of the time, I could easily envision the story in my mind as the words were before my eyes.

The moral of this book was that even though you do not know what you are getting or what you want, you need to try your best.  Even though Miri did not want to be at the Academy she still tried her best.  Like Miri I will try to do my best.  Sometimes it will be hard, but I know that is really what I need to do.