Meanwhile, our girls will read most anything-they are more flexible readers and likely will grow into more flexible adults. I’m worried that in our well-intentioned ardor to help boys become confident readers, we’re reinforcing a culture of sexism. That girls can’t be interesting protagonists.

We’re telling them in many subtle ways that anything to do with girls is bad for boys. When I do school visits, the schools often take the girls out of class for my assembly but omit the boys.

I hear from some teachers that they’re afraid the boys won’t like books about girls, so the ones they choose to read as a class are targeted for the boys. Sometimes we say that boys won’t read books about girls, and then we make that true by only offering them books about boys. I’m so glad now that I did.īooks with strong female protagonists, such as those in the Princess Academy series, are often labeled “girl books.” But you’ve said that it is equally important for boys to read books with dynamic female characters. It wasn’t until I had a story idea so intriguing, complicated, and alluring to me that I was able to ignore my fears and just had to write it. I was hesitant to interfere with my own version. So many more people had read PRINCESS ACADEMY than anything else I had written, and they were telling themselves their own stories about what happens next. It was intimidating! And not necessarily because of the prestige, but due to all the readers that the award attracted to the book. What were the special challenges of writing the follow-up to a novel that received such prestige? Visit her online at Next Tuesday Bloomsbury will release PALACE OF STONE, the sequel to your Newbery Honor-winning book, PRINCESS ACADEMY. She and her husband, the author Dean Hale, have four children and live near Salt Lake City, Utah. Shannon Hale is the Newbery Honor–winning and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of PRINCESS ACADEMY, THE BOOKS OF BAYERN, BOOK OF A THOUSAND DAYS, and the graphic novels RAPUNZEL’S REVENGE and CALAMITY JACK-as well as three novels for adults.

Princess academy book 3