Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Guest Blogger Day

The assignment was: Pretend you are the author of a book. Tell us why you wrote it and what you hope readers will get out of it. Write it from the first person point of view. I'm especially proud of this essay, which represents a substantial improvement and source of self-confidence for Michelle.

I think the book I wrote called Princess Academy was really good. The story is about mountain girls who learn to be princesses. The shock is that Miri, the main character, doesn’t get to marry the prince, but she becomes the academy princess though. I hope the children who read this book will treasure it like it was more precious than gold and learn about teamwork, listening, and helping.

I’m sure that the kids who read my book will learn about teamwork because Miri helped her friends get out of hard times. For example, Miri helped the other girls in the academy help girls from running away from the academy because the teacher was very mean. She tried to not escape herself, so that was a hard task.

The children who read this book might learn about listening because every girl had to listen or there would be a punishment. Some of the causes of the punishment are raising your hand, talking, and, of course, not listening. I hope that the kids don’t take this too seriously because you won’t get locked in a closet or a palm-lashing these days. Once one of Miri’s friends forgot about one rule and raised her hand for a question. She didn’t wait for the teacher to call on her and blurted it out so Miri’s friend got a palm-lashing.

After reading Princess Academy readers might learn to be more helpful. Everyone had to help in the quarry to help their families survive. They needed to help because their families were poor and they lived in small huts on a mountain.

I hope that children will learn teamwork, listening, and helping when they read this book. I’ve got to tell you writing this was like the game, “find the needle in the haystack” In other words, it was a pain in the bottom. Hey, it was worth it because I got lots of money from that book! Hope you like it.

-Michelle, 5th grade

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Tags: children's books princesses Shannon Hale