Hale, Shannon. Princess Academy. New York: Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2005.
Up on Mt. Eskel, the villagers don’t get out much. The only way to make a living up there is to work in the linder quarry, chipping out blocks of the marble-like stone and selling it to the lowland traders who come up the mountain every so often, and that’s exactly what they’ve been doing for countless generations. Work in the quarry, barter with the traders, work, barter, and so on. Everyone follows this tradition without fail—everyone, that is, except fourteen-year-old Miri, who’s been barred from the quarry by her father and left to feel completely useless to the mountainside village.
The village’s hundreds of years of routine are suddenly broken up, however, when the chief delegate from the kingdom down below the mountain arrives with an unbelievable announcement: the King’s chief priests have convened, and they’ve determined that the Prince will choose his bride from among the girls of Mt. Eskel. To prepare the girls for this honor, they’re all going to be herded into a Princess Academy for a year, where they will learn to act like polished princesses instead of rough mountain quarry workers. Miri is pretty torn about this; she doesn’t want to leave her Pa and her hometown (not to mention Peder, the guy she’s got a huge crush on), but on the other hand it would mean a chance to see the world, never being cold and hungry again, and best of all she wouldn’t have to feel so darn useless anymore. She decides to go for it, but before she’s been at the academy for long, she discovers that not all that glitters is gold…
“Miri awoke to a tug and a horrible feeling…She felt it again, a tugging on her scalp. Something was caught in her braid. She wanted to scream, but terror clamped down on her breath. Every spot of her skin ached with the dread of what might be touching her. It felt strong, too big to be a mouse. The tip of a tail licked her cheek. A rat. Miri sobbed breathlessly, remembering the rat bite that had killed a village baby some years before. She did not dare to call out for fear of spooking the beast…She could not move, she could not speak. How long would she have to lie there until someone came for her?” (p. 72-73)
