Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Miri and Peder (Princess Academy) leave their beloved mountain for the capital city of Danland, where they are joyfully reunited with their friend Britta, now betrothed to the prince. But something is amiss: revolution is brewing. Nobody has Hale's knack for seamlessly segueing between the folksy, intimate charm of an extended fairy tale and the more epic scope of high fantasy.

ALA Booklist (Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

Miri's chance to leave Mount Eskel, home of Danland's valuable linder-stone mines, to attend university in the capital city, Asland, is too tempting to refuse. She will also help former classmate Katar, now Mount Eskel's delegate to the capital, help assess brewing political intrigue. Hale's sequel to Princess Academy (2005) stirs up plenty of suspense and surprise as the kingdom teeters on the brink of Asland Spring. With characteristic pluck, Miri navigates a delicate path between defending her academy friend and newly chosen princess, Britta, and working for a more humane and democratic government. "How could she face her family again if the king's tributes reduced them to poverty worse than before?" But can she risk participating in a revolution that could be brutally suppressed? Miri's appealing blend of innocence, bravery, and good sense will draw fans. This lively, provocative tale about political change and justice works better as a sequel than a stand-alone. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Princess Academy rode a Newbery Honor onto the New York Times Bestseller list, and Hale's only gotten more popular ever since.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Readers of Hale's Newbery Honor-winning Princess Academy (2005) will welcome this reunion with Miri and her schoolmates, as they descend Mount Eskel to help Britta prepare for her wedding to Prince Steffan. But while the palace in the capital city of Asland is as luxurious as their imaginations conjured, the working classes are hungry and tired of footing the royal family's bill. Revolution is in the air, and it sweeps Miri, now enrolled at the university, into its wake. Miri is torn in several ways: between two boys, between the educational advantages Asland offers and her home in the mountains, and between empathy for the "shoeless" and loyalty to Britta, who has become the focus of the revolutionaries' wrath. Hale handles these threads ably, although a scene in which the Eskelites stop a villain by using their ability to communicate through stone-a homegrown talent called "quarry-speech"-has a whiff of comic-book superhero that feels out of place. Still, this is a fine follow-up to a novel that already felt complete. Ages 10-up. Agent: Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary. (Sept.)

School Library Journal (Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2012)

Gr 6 Up-In this follow-up to The Princess Academy (Bloomsbury, 2005), Miri and her fellow graduates are headed to Danland's capital city to attend the wedding of their friend Britta and Prince Steffan. Miri is also given a place at the university and wonders if she might stay in the city rather than return to her tiny village of Mt. Eskel.This indecision is complicated by her mixed feelings about Peder, her maybe-fianc&3; from home, and Timon, the friendly scholar she meets in her classes. When delegates from the other provinces stage an insulting protest to the king, Miri learns that the Eskelites are not the only ones who have been abused by the monarchy, and that the "shoeless" poor are close to rebellion. She is enlisted to befriend the rebels and quickly becomes sympathetic to their side. When it turns out her new friends have an agenda of their own, she realizes that she has put Britta's life in danger. The rebellion plotline acts as a primer on why change and social improvement are so difficult, and how resorting to violence can backfire. Miri may be just a young woman from Mt. Eskel, but in Palace of Stone she proves once again that with quick wits and brave words, one person really can change the world. Eliza Langhans, Hatfield Public Library, MA

Kirkus Reviews

Miri leaves her mountain of linder stone for another year of study and finds ethics and rhetoric to be powerful tools in the making of a revolution. This sequel to Princess Academy (2005) returns Miri and several of the girls from Mount Eskel to Asland to prepare for the wedding of Miri's best friend Britta to Prince Steffan. Times are dire: The people are destitute or starving, and the king, Steffan's father, seems indifferent and distant. Miri meets Timon, a classmate, and Lady Sisela, who speak strongly of the oppression of "the shoeless." The first half of the tale is a little slow and full of set-up, but the second half, when Miri takes action to prevent bloodshed, is powerful and deeply engaging. She uses not only rhetoric and ethics but the emotions of her people, which are held in the linder stone that comprises the palace, to hold the violence of the revolution in check. The politics echo the French Revolution (Hale notes this in the acknowledgments), but Miri's clear voice keeps the story hers and her people's. There's lovely texture to clothing and architectural descriptions and vivid warmth to Miri's friendships, her longing for home and her thirst to learn more and more. Not one but two boys help her find all the feelings kisses can engender. Miri's story comes to a satisfying end; readers who have been waiting since 2005 will find their patience well rewarded. (Fantasy. 10-14)