When author Shannon Hale’s third novel, “Princess Academy,” was first published 20 years ago, she says she was “so insecure” about it.
She remembers attending a signing for the middle-grade novel at The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City not long after it was published, where she actively tried to dissuade would-be readers from buying the book.
“I said, ‘“The Goose Girl” is in paperback!’” Hale recently told the Deseret News, referring to her first published novel, which had been released only a couple years earlier. “‘That’s less money! Maybe get (“Princess Academy”) from the library.’”
Though she personally liked the book, she was still early enough in her career that she didn’t have much confidence it would do well.
“I thought, ‘This book is quiet and weird, like me,’” Hale said. “And I know people are going to be expecting a certain kind of story from the title and the premise, and then they’re going to read it and be like, ‘This is not what I was expecting.’”
So when “Princess Academy” didn’t make much of a splash at first, Hale wasn’t that surprised. But then she received a call that changed everything: “Princess Academy” had been awarded a Newbery Honor.
Now, 20 years later, it’s sold over 1 million copies and been translated into 25 languages, according to Hale — and it’s won the hearts of countless readers. In those same 20 years, things have changed for Hale, too: The Utah-based author has written a total of 50 books, one of which has been adapted into a movie, and she has plenty more books in the works; and on a personal level, after writing “Princess Academy” with a baby in her lap, she now has four children.
And at a more recent book signing at Folklore Bookshop in Midway, Hale was no longer trying to steer readers away from “Princess Academy.” Instead, at the event where the book’s 20th anniversary was celebrated, she talked about how much “Princess Academy” means to her.
Writing ‘Princess Academy’
In some ways, the story of “Princess Academy” plays out like a fairy tale. A group of girls have to leave their small village to go to a school where they will learn to become princesses, so that one of them can be chosen to marry the prince. But while the story features magic, the girls also learn more unexpected skills like diplomacy that help them protect themselves from dangerous bandits and even to build their village’s economy.
The original idea for the book, though, “wasn’t that spectacular,” according to Hale. During a conversation with her husband about a book he was reading, he used the phrase “tutor to the princesses” — and the wheels started turning for “Princess Academy.”
Hale continued to come back to the idea as she worked on other projects, and she found further inspiration in elements of her own life.
For example, the mountain village where the book’s main character, Miri, lives was inspired by the mountains of the Wasatch Front in Hale’s home state of Utah, particularly Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Hale also feels like she has “a lot in common” with Miri, who she describes as a girl who “didn’t quite fit in, which certainly was something I felt my whole life.”
“I think many, many kids do,” she continued, adding that Miri “wanted to be useful, wanted to matter, and she didn’t know what that looked like. ... Her current circumstances were very narrow and didn’t allow her to really stretch her wings and explore, you know, her full range of what she had to give back to this world, which is something that I definitely related to.”
Once “Princess Academy” was published, it took some time for it to find its footing. Hale’s nerves about how the book would be received at first seemed justified — it received some good reviews but didn’t seem poised to make a big impression, she said. But then it was awarded the Newbery Honor.
The award was significant for multiple reasons, not least of which was that Hale was the very first Utah author to receive the Newbery Honor, which is one of the most prestigious awards in children’s literature (a second Utah author, Christian McKay Heidicker for “Scary Stories for Young Foxes,” followed her nearly 15 years later).
But it was also significant because Hale believes that the award opened “Princess Academy” to a much wider audience than it might have had otherwise.
“It shined a spotlight on a book that I think a certain segment of the reading population would have dismissed because of the name and the premise,” Hale said. “They would have decided, this is not literary, this is fluffy, this is not worth my time.”
Instead, the book has now lived on with readers even two decades later. Coming back from a book tour for her newest book, “Dream On,” Hale said that she had both children and adults approaching her to tell her they had read and reread “Princess Academy” and “adored it,” which she called “so gratifying.”
A girls book — and a boys book
The love for “Princess Academy” was evident at Folklore Bookshop, where Hale recently spoke to a gathered crowd of mostly girls and women, of all ages, about both “Princess Academy” and “Dream On.”
“It was one of my favorite books growing up,” said Kami Glick, an English teacher at Wasatch High School, adding that “it’s so nostalgic” for her to look back at it now.
Glick, who was at the Folklore event with her sister, said that they are now encouraging their 13-year-old niece to read “Princess Academy.”
Andrea Chamberlain said that she originally read the book because of her sister. “My sister calls it her comfort story,” Chamberlain said. “Whenever she’s, you know, just needs something that makes her feel good, she reads ‘Princess Academy.’”
Telling a story that girls could relate to was important to Hale.
“One of the aspects of writing that matters to me the most is representing all different kinds of girls,” Hale said. ”Each book is a chance to explore all different kinds of girls and different ways of being.”
But that doesn’t mean “Princess Academy” is exclusively a book for girls. It’s important to Hale that boys read “Princess Academy” too, because she believes that when boys read books with female main characters, it helps them gain empathy.
Too often, though, in Hale’s experience, it’s assumed that boys wouldn’t want to read books with a female lead — or with the word “princess” in the title.
Hale said she’s heard from many teachers that when they first told their class they were going to read a book called “Princess Academy,” “all the girls went, ‘Yay!’ and all the boys went, ‘Boo!’”
“But then when we read it,” the teachers told Hale, “the boys liked it just as much or more than the girls did.”
The assumption that “boys will only read books about boys, while girls would read anything” is problematic to Hale.
“Girls are going through life being asked to watch movies through the eyes of male characters and read books through the eyes of male characters, and taking in all these opportunities to learn to empathize with male characters,” Hale said, “and boys are being prevented from, protected from and even shamed from having empathy for female characters.”
“What kind of generation of boys are we creating if we do that?” Hale continued. “That’s not great for them or for the girls that they’re going to interact with in their life.”
This gender divide is something that Hale has been discussing and writing about for years now, but she says that it’s something she still faces pushback on, and though she thinks “the needle has moved” in terms of people being more accepting of boys reading books about girls, from her experiences and viewpoint, “we still have a long way to go.”
Glick, from her perspective as a teacher, said that she wished she could get more of her boy students to read “Princess Academy.”
“They hear ‘Princess Academy’ and they’re immediately like, ‘No, I can’t do it,’” Glick said. “But it’s such a great story for everybody, because, you know, (Miri is) protecting her people, and I think … the boys need that in their lives just as much as the girls.”
What’s next for Shannon Hale?
Even after 20 years and two sequels, there’s still more to come for “Princess Academy.”
Next year, a graphic novel version of “Princess Academy,” with art by Victoria Ying, will be released, opening the book to a new generation of readers.
But Hale said part of the reason she decided to turn the book into a graphic novel was for herself.
“I think part of me just really wanted to see it,” Hale said. “Part of me wanted to see those characters’ faces and their expressions and the landscape and just kind of feel like I was there.”
Hale thinks she spent more time adapting “Princess Academy” into a graphic novel than she did writing the original book, saying that “a lot of work and care” went into the project.
Graphic novels have been a passion of Hale for a while — she says a fifth of her books are graphic novels, including her most recent book, “Dream On,” which was published last month. She thinks there’s value for kids in reading graphic novels, particularly those who are more visual learners. And for kids who may be more verbal and don’t have a strong visual imagination, she says graphic novels can help them develop “visual literacy.”
Hale told the crowd gathered at Folklore Bookshop that she has several more books in the works, including two more sequels to her adult novel “Austenland.” And “Austenland” and its already published sequel, “Midnight in Austenland,” will be republished with new editions in the near future.
Twenty years and 50 books later, though, Hale is still gratified by readers’ responses to “Princess Academy.”
“If I could tell my younger self,” said Hale, “I wouldn’t have believed me.”