Honors and Reviews
Honors
Newbery Honor Book
New York Times, Book Sense, and PW Best Seller
A Book Sense Pick for Fall 2005
An ALA Notable Children's Book
2007 Beehive Award winner
A New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
A New England Booksellers Association Top 10 Titles for Fall
A Book for the Teen Age by The New York Public Library
Honorable Mention for "Favorite Novel of the Year," PW's 2005 Cuffie Awards
Winner of the 2006 Utah Children's Book Award
A Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year, starred entry
Nominated for the 2008 Arizona Grand Canyon Reader Award
Nominated for the 2008 Colorado Children's Book Award
Nominated for the 2008 South Carolina Young Adult Book Award
Nominated for the 2008 Young Reader's Choice Award, sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Library Association
Nominated for the Illinois 2008 Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award
Nominated for the 2010 Maud Hart Lovelace award (Minnesota)
A 2007 DCF Voting Top Ten (Vermont)
A Salt Lake Tribune Best Book of 2005
Recommended Reads for Kids 2005 (Dover Community News)
A 2013 Popular Paperback for Young Adults (YALSA)
Reviews
"The book is a fresh approach to the traditional princess story with unexpected plot twists and great emotional resonance."
2006 Newbery Committee
"There are many pleasures to this satisfying tale: a precise lyricism to the language and a rhythm to the story that takes its tropes from many places, but its heart from ours...[A]n unalloyed joy."
Kirkus, starred review
"The story is much like the mountains, with plenty of suspenseful moments that peak and fall, building into the next intense event. Each girl's story is brought to a satisfying conclusion, but this is not a fluffy, predictable fairy tale, even though it has wonderful moments of humor. Instead, Hale weaves an intricate, multilayered story about families, relationships, education, and the place we call home."
School Library Journal, starred review
"Hale nicely interweaves feminist sensibilities in this quest-for-a-prince-charming, historical-fantasy tale. Strong suspense and plot drive the action."
Booklist
"Hale breathes new life into the fairy tale form with this richly imagined fantasy. A truly marvelous book, rich with color, adventure and romance."
Buffalo News
"I believe it’s a book for everybody. Hale knows that 'realistic' doesn’t have to mean 'unrelentingly ugly.' Hale offers us a world full of grief and fear and loneliness – but also full of love and trust and decency. There are adventures and dangers, and the most compelling, believable, poignant love story I have read in many a year. I was moved to tears and to laughter, and caught up in the grace and beauty."
Orson Scott Card
“The imaginative setting for the story makes it timeless and universal. . . . This new classic will have a place with leisure readers and in the classroom.”
VOYA
"[A] charming young-adult fantasy. The mountain setting creates an evocative sense of a world apart, with just a tantalizing touch of magic."
Locus
"I adored this charming tale of overcoming hardships that puts a twist on happily ever after."-Dawn Hannawi, Chesterfield Books, Chesterfield Twp, MI (Book Sense Autumn Picks 2005)
"The Princess Academy is a perfect chapter book for older elementary or middle school kids. . . . [A] satisfying tale with an even more satisfying ending."
The Post and Courier
"With this . . . poetically insightful writing, the reader will enjoy following Miri and her journey to self-acceptance."
The Pilot (North Carolina)
"[A] magical read!"
Discovery Girls
"Miri’s culture is deftly drawn; snippets from the quarriers’ working songs lead each chapter, and the harsh yet beautiful physical and cultural details of Miri’s world keep this optimistic tale believable. This could be a useful introduction to fantasy for realistic buffs — the authentic sniping and backbiting of jealous girls cooped up together for a year, the character-driven plot, and the vigorous prose will carry readers of all kinds into the center of the story."
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
"PRINCESS ACADEMY is the strong, well-written story of one girl's determination to show that even a small mountain flower can be as valuable as a gold crown."
teenreads.com
"Hale is an extraordinary narrative writer who creates characters with whom the reader can relate. [With Princess Academy,] Shannon Hale continues to shine."
Deseret News (Utah)
"Faceted and brilliant, PRINCESS ACADEMY is a jewel of a book, by an author who is rapidly becoming one of my favorites."
bakka-phoenix science fiction bookstore
"Full of suspense...this novel by acclaimed author Shannon Hale will keep young readers stuck to the page like the winter snow on Miri's beloved mountain."
Washington Parent
Some early reviews from a girl's reading group in beautiful Austin, Texas, April 2005:
"Princess Academy was a fantastic book, and I can't wait for it to come out so other people can discover it! ...I could hardly put the book down! The moods in Princess Academy seemed to morph into one another, so that one moment you were excited, and the next mad. It's a great book that is full of surprises!!"
Ana
"ohmygosh, I LOVED Princess Academy!!!! It was awesome."
peyton
"i read it too. it is a reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy goooooooooood book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Ana (again)
"A wonderful book with a original story to tell, The Princess Academy is great! EVERYONE, should read it, well, maybe Aaron wouldn't like it, but anyway!
Tess
"Ahhhhh, Princess Academy!! I just love, love, love her writing. It's so.....keep-you-up-at-night writing!"
Staci
Palace of Stone
A New York Times best seller
A Junior Library Guild selection
A VOYA Perfect Ten - 5Q for quality (hard to imagine it better written) and 5P for popularity (every young adult who reads was dying to read it yesterday)
"Absolutely incredible ... this is the book we have all been waiting for."
--Jennifer L. Holm, three-time Newbery Honoree and NYTimes-bestselling author of Turtle in Paradise
"Shannon Hale is a master of fantasy. In Palace of Stone, she raises her own stakes with a gorgeously-written sequel about the heartbreaking complications of revolution, friendship, romance, and returning home."
--Stephanie Perkins, NYTimes-bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss
"[P]owerful and deeply engaging...Miri's clear voice keeps the story hers and her people's. There's lovely...descriptions and vivid warmth to Miri's friendships, her longing for home and her thirst to learn more and more. Miri's story comes to a satisfying end; readers who have been waiting since 2005 will find their patience well rewarded."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Hale's skill as a storyteller will charm her audience...nobody else has quite the same knack for seamlessly segueing between the folksy, intimate charm of an extended fairy tale and the larger canvas and more epic scope of high fantasy."
--Horn Book
"Miri may be just a young woman from Mt. Eskel, but in Palace of Stone she proves once again that with quick wit and brave words, one person really can change the world."
--School Library Journal
"Miri's appealing blend of innocence, bravery, and good sense will draw fans...[A] lively, provocative tale about political change and justice...Princess Academy rode a Newbery Honor onto the New York Times Bestseller list, and Hale's only gotten more popular ever since.
--Booklist
"Readers of Hale's Newbery Honor–winning Princess Academy (2005) will welcome this reunion with Miri and her schoolmates...this is a fine follow-up"
Publisher's Weekly
"It was lovely to be reunited with the girls of Mount Eskel. Where in Princess Academy she found her strengths, now Miri has to find the best way to use them -- and quickly. Politically challenging, thought-provoking, and genuinely heartwarming, Hale's newest is one I can't wait to handsell."
Jenn Northington, WORD, Brooklyn, NY
"What a treasure! Shannon always puts her whole soul into what she writes and I think this time she has outdone herself. I didn't even know I wanted a sequel and now I am not sure how we went so many years without one!"
Heather Herbert, Children's Book World, Haverford, PA
"We loved Palace of Stone! This was classic Shannon Hale. Even though I haven't read Princess Academy in five years, I instantly identified with all the characters. Shannon Hale is so reachable!"
Becky Lee, Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, TX
"Again Hale has spun a tale of adventure and friendship where good over evil can get complicated."
Valerie Lewis, Hicklebee's, San Jose, CA
"For me, Palace of Stone bears two hallmarks of a great book--a story that I found myself daydreaming about and characters that I miss now that I have finished the novel."
Cynthia Richards, Northshire Bookstore, VT
"I loved this beautifully written coming-of-age story. A very worthy sequel to the wonderful Princess Academy."
Carol Moyer, Quail Ridge Books & Music, Raleigh, NC
"Yay! Highly enjoyable, this is sure to please fans of Princess Academy, Shannon Hale, or fantasy."
Adrienne's Book Blog
"Five full and enthusiastic stars."
Calliope's Reviews
"I LOVED this book. Shannon Hale is one of my favorite authors."
Raving Reader
"I had not read the first Princess Academy book, which was a Newbery honor book. I know it's always been very popular with the middle school girls at my school, as have almost all of Shannon Hale's books. I didn't find it an issue reading this one without reading the first...I thoroughly enjoyed this and highly recommend it."
Wandering Librarians
"This is a worthy sequel to Princess Academy. The book is sweet, even while dealing with the threats of revolution and assassination, it maintains the fairytale like quality that we've come to expect from Shannon Hale books."
Galavanting Girl Books
"This is one of the very few books that both educates and entertains — and doesn't short-change either side! It is an absolute must-read!"
Alamosa Books
"It's sort of... Princess Academy meets Catching Fire. In other words, thought-provoking and multi-layered while somehow cozy and, of course, beautifully written. As usual with a Shannon Hale book, I just wanted the story to go on and on; I wanted to live in it. Gorgeous."
Reading Everywhere
"The writing is like snuggling down into a huge pile of feathers and getting lost in the softness until you don't know which way's up."
Colorimetry
"This book is going to be memorable. Very memorable."
Books Are Better Than Ice Cream
"Palace of Stone doesn't have quite the same magic to it as its predecessor. But there's nothing wrong with that. It's got a different kind of magic to it that's all its own."
Cracking the Cover
Forgotten Sisters
A Junior Library Guild Selection
*"Action packed and wellpaced, the story's depth incorporates artful negotiation, the importance of education, and citizens' equality and rights. This final installment of The Princess Academy trilogy certainly leaves room for more books if Hale were so inclined. Won't she reconsider?"
Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
"Hale maintains her high quality of storytelling, with lots of action, plot twists and lyrical writing...A laudable conclusion to a popular series."
Kirkus Reviews
"As always, Hale is a terrific storyteller: she deftly juggles plot, character, and setting; her prose is lyrical yet economical; and the themes of feminism and equality that run throughout the trilogy blossom in the resolution of this concluding volume. Readers will be sad to say goodbye, not just to Miri and company but also to Danland itself."
Horn Book
"Although ten years have passed since...Princess Academy was recognized as a Newbery Honor book, the characters remain fresh and appealing. Readers will welcome this book as they have earlier books in the popular series."
Children's Literature