Princess Academy

Princess Academy, Book 1

By: Shannon Hale

Narrated by: Laura Credidio

Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among the girls of the village.

The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess. Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires to be chosen and win the heart of her childhood best friend. But when bandits seek out the academy to kidnap the future princess, Miri must rally the girls together and use a power unique to the mountain dwellers to save herself and her classmates.

©2005 Shannon Hale (P)2013 Full Cast Audio and AudioGO

Critic reviews

"Shannon Hale writes deft, lyrical, wonderful fantasy." (Holly Black, author of The Spiderwick Chronicles and Tithe)

Overall, great book

Much more interesting than ‘just another princess book’, with way more plot than just romance and princesses, while still keeping in touch with the royal theme. The full cast was definitely interesting but I don’t know if it was worth it, a lot of the girls sound the same. The bandit chapters we’re probably my least favorite, the way it was resolved could have been better but it’s not terrible. Miri, the protagonist, feels very ‘main character ’, or just always seems to have the spotlight and being important all the time, still a great book and I greatly enjoyed it

!minor spoilers!

Good story and character development

My daughter and I enjoyed listening to this together and I loved the character development and that even some of the “bad” people were presented as more complex than just good or bad by the end. I always appreciate when books have characters who are complex. The songs/poems at the beginning of each of the chapters were interesting- my daughter didn’t love those parts. Overall, a really sweet story. We enjoyed it a lot.

Amazing!

This is such a good book! It is a great story with fun characters and an easy to understand plot. Although it would be better without the singing parts (which aren't always the best) it is a book I will 100% recommend to anyone!

Amazing

Not expecting to care for the book or the reading of it, imagine my surprise and delight at such a refreshing, well crafted story that doesn’t have morally objectionable language nor situations. The production was breathtaking. Good Job All!

Nostalgia City

This was SO well done. Didn’t realize it was a full cast recording. Shannon Hale is such a good writer and it all took me back to my childhood. 1000/10