Princess Academy

Hale, Shannon. Princess Academy. New York, NY: Bloomsbury. 2005. ISBN: 9781582349930

Plot Summary:
High in the mountains of fictional Danland lays Mount Eskel. The people of the mountain are strong, large and hard-working, daily working to mine linder, a marble-like stone, which is their livelihood. Every capable man and woman (including teens) are put to work in the quarry, with the exception of Miri. Miri, who is smaller than girls older than she, is made to stay home by her father, making her feel as if she is missing out on something essential with her friends and neighbors. One day, a royal announcement is made that all eligible girls are going to be sent to a princess academy. At the end of the academy, the prince will choose a bride from the girls that pass.

Miri finds it difficult to be away from home, especially when the tutor at the school is strict and punishes girls for the smallest of reasons. She loses the friendship of many of the girls after a run-in with Tutor Olana and throws herself into her studies. Miri finally finds a friend in Britta, a girl who grew up off the mountain, and eventually wins the friendship and admiration of many of her classmates after she stands up to the unfair Tutor Olana. In her studies, Miri finds out how valuable linder is to the rest of Danland, helping her village to trade for things they have never had before. Additionally, she is chosen academy princess and meets the prince, who does not seem to measure up to her best friend, Peder. After the royal ball, the academy group is captured by bandits, but Miri saves the day by using ‘quarry-speech’ to call the people of her village to their aid. In the end, Miri learns that family and community is worth more than a crown or palace.

Critical Analysis:
Miri is the type of character that is not afraid to show her flaws, making the character that much more identifiable to the reader. She is strong-willed, nervous around the boy she likes and struggles with the fact that she does not work in the quarry with the rest of the village. These elements make the character real, not one that is better than anything the reader could ever attain in their lives. Other characters in the book are equally rounded and not one of them is easily explained. Each has their own secret wish or hidden desire that is revealed in due time. This helps the story root itself in realism in the midst of fantasy.

Hale draws such a distinctive picture of the village, the reader is able to get an instinctive feeling for the village. Views, houses, even beds, are described with such vividness that the reader can truly imagine how it would have felt, smelled or be seen from Miri’s perspective. In the same way, the village and villagers are described, allowing the reader to get authentic understanding of the closeness that would exist. Vocabulary used by the different characters enhances this visual, in that the children speak differently to one another than they would to an adult or the prince himself. The theme is consistent with the struggles that Miri finds during the course of the book. While speaking out is difficult, in the end it is the right thing to do.

Awards and Reviews:
“This is not a fluffy, predictable fairy tale . . . Instead, Hale weaves an intricate, multilayered story about families, relationships, education, and the place we call home." – Linda Plevak, School Library Journal

“[N]icely interweaves feminist sensibilities in this quest-for-a-prince-charming, historical-fantasy tale. Strong suspense and plot drive the action as the girls outwit would-be kidnappers and explore the boundaries of leadership, competition, and friendship.” - Booklist

2005 Honorable Mention for "Favorite Novel of the Year", Publishers Weekly's Cuffie Awards
2006 Newbery Honor Book
2006 Utah Children's Book Award
2007 Beehive Award winner
An ALA Notable Children's Book
A New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
A Book for the Teen Age by The New York Public Library
A Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year, starred entry

Connections:
*What is life really like for a princess? Find some famous real-life princess and what they spend their time doing. Have students work on a “week in the life” project based on the life of the princess of their choosing.
*Create a reader’s theater based on the book! This will be appealing to boys and girls alike; girls will get to be princesses and boys get the chance to be a bandit or quarrier.
*Linder is VERY important to Mount Eskel. What things are important exports for your town? Read and research the exports that help to feed and clothe the families of your hometown.

Book Jacket found on: http://bookbutterflyangel.wordpress.com/2008/06/

Going Bovine

Bray, Libba. Going Bovine. New York, NY: Delacorte Press. 2009. ISBN: 9780385733977

Plot Summary:
Cameron Smith is unpopular, has a job he hates, a popular twin sister, doesn’t do very well in school and finds it hard to communicate with his parents. He finds himself in the middle of a suburban wasteland and longs to get out. Soon after the reader meets Cameron, something inside his head begins to change. He is having trouble controlling his body and keeps having visions of fire giants along the landscape of his seemingly normal hometown. After a toaster catches fire in the kitchen and Cameron has another hallucination, his parents take him to the doctor where they find out Cameron has Creutzfeldt-Jakob – or mad cow - disease. The disease is incurable and will eventually leave Cameron without any brain function.

Soon after the diagnosis, Cameron is sent to the hospital where he shares a room with Ignacio “Gonzo” Gonzales. After a visit by a “punk-rock” angel, who tells Cameron he has to search for the cure, Cameron and Gonzo embark on a road trip to find the doctor that holds the key to cure. They stop in New Orleans, where they play with a jazz legend, get taken to a commune where there is no unhappy thought allowed, find themselves in the company of a living breathing garden gnome named Balder and make a stop at an MTV-style beach house. Along the road, Cameron and Gonzo find out different things about themselves, but are always on the lookout for Dr. X and the cure. Eventually, Cameron figures out that this journey is all a figment of his imagination and that there is no cure. While Cameron of this world passes away at the end of the novel, he finds himself living in the afterlife with the punk-rock angel.

Critical Analysis:
A work of low fantasy, Going Bovine does its best to allude to the reader that not everything is as it seems in the story. Cameron has flashbacks to the “real” world during the moments that he stops to sleep on his adventure. These include moments when he sees and hears his parents, his nurse and feels some connection to his actual surroundings. Bray does an excellent job of connecting the main character’s adventures on the road trip, to stories that Cameron has shared with the reader prior to his diagnosis. For instance, his mother would regale he and his sister with Norse tales and that translates to the inclusion of the talking gnome, Balder, in the story. This consistency in thought brings continuity to the story, amid the fantastical things that are happening to Cameron.

Cameron is identifiable to many readers of the target audience of the novel. He is on the fringe, not in the inner circle, but does his best not to care. During his expedition, Cameron figures out what how self-centered he has been his whole life, bringing a new depth to his character. Prior to this discovery, Cameron is not a character the reader may particularly care about, but his journey into understanding the importance of letting other people in makes his character admirable and likable. Clearly, the theme of this work is within the growth of Cameron’s awareness that love, living and friendship are more important than he knew.

Awards and Reviews:
“[M]eandering and message-driven at times…[s]ome teens may check out before Cameron makes it to his final destination, but many will enjoy asking themselves the questions both deep and shallow that pop up along the way.” Suzanne Gordon, School Library Journal

“Bray portrays Cameron so realistically that he is every teen struggling with his or her identity. At times, readers will both love and hate Cameron as his adventures are alternately comical, nail biting, and heart wrenching.” – Laura Panter, VOYA

“This is a huge book in every way: an epic, picaresque 480-page journey; a scathingly observed social satire of the ways in which we numb ourselves to avoid the pain and risk of actually engaging with our lives; a stay-up-late-to-finish-it page-turner; and a sprawling, hilarious, and deeply moving meditation on what it is, in the end, that makes life worth living.” Claudia Mills, Ph.D., Children’s Literature

2009 - Children's Book Sense Pick
2009 - Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of the Year
2009 - Booklist Books for Youth Editors' Choice
2010 - Michael L. Printz Award Winner
2010 - ALA Best Books for Young Adults
2010 - NCSS/CBC Notable Children's Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies
2010 - New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age

Connections:
*How does one get mad cow disease anyway? How does it affect the body? How can you prevent it? Break students into groups that answer different questions about the facts of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
*Cameron in the first chapter is very different than Cameron in the last chapter. In what ways did each character change on the trip? Compare and contrast the characters at the beginning of the journey to who they were at the end.
* What were some of the things that Cameron mentioned about his life that returned during the road trip in different ways? (Look for ways that the author included facts Cameron mentioned before the introduction of his illness into different parts of the story.)

Book Jacket found on: http://hamiltonteens.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/going-bovine-by-libba-bray/