Princess Academy and The Place I Call Home

Hello everyone! Many days have passed since my last post. Halloween went by and so did All Soul's day. Prayers for souls everyone!

I'm writing to talk about a book I just finished yesterday. It's called Princess Academy and it's written by Shannon Hale. I thoroughly enjoyed it especially the characters and Shannon's description of the marvelous, wonderful place. I love the exciting and intriguing plot punched in with just the right characters to provide conflicts and excitement. This book is actually categorized under the Young Adult (YA) division but for those of you who may not consider yourselves YA fans, I still urge you not to dismiss reading Princess Academy entirely.

Princess Academy is about a smart young girl named Miri. Miri lives in a mountain called Mount Eskel where life is simple and at times, hard. Her small village thrives on quarrying linder stone directly from the mountain. As they all live far above the lowlands, Miri and the people of her beloved village are seen as remote, even unknown and uncivilized. This is how the rest of the lowlanders in their kingdom sees them until one fateful day when the priests of the kingdom divined that the future princess will hail from none other than Mount Eskel. All of a sudden the village, especially Miri and the rest of the village girls are put under the kingdom's spotlight. Miri and the rest of her village's eligible girls are made to attend a Princess Academy, a school designed to train and polish girls until the day that the prince of the kingdom chooses one of them to be his bride. With all the pressure and the criticism surrounding these girls, how do they manage to study and maintain their friendships? As though all these aren't enough, Miri and her village encounters real danger and Miri herself struggles with the inner conflicts of her desire to be a princess and her love for her family and her mountain home.

Can you guess that I do so love the book? I really do, especially the relationships between the characters, the mountain secrets and the marvelous place itself. I imagine myself attending such an academy and I wonder how good or bad I will do? :0)
I love how Ms. Shannon described the place! Her colorful descriptions make me want to live as a villager on Mount Eskel, be friends with Miri, Peder, Britta, Esa, Katar and all the others! Who knows, I may find such a place with good people where I can build a home! I know I will, remember this is Lorrainekid writing!

Well, home is where the heart is and actually, the home I live now is where my heart will always be! The world and all the universe hold such special, magical places however, that I always do believe there will be many more places that I will be happy to call home. In the end, I do believe that home is where your loved ones are with you and you are at peace with the rest of the world and its Creator. Home could be anywhere, you just need to open your heart!