The Goose Girl

Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, spends the first years of her life under her aunt's guidance learning to communicate with animals. As she grows up Ani develops the skills of animal speech, but is never comfortable speaking with people, so when her silver-tongued lady-in-waiting leads a mutiny during Ani's journey to be married in a foreign land, Ani is helpless and cannot persuade anyone to assist her. Becoming a goose girl for the king, Ani eventually uses her own special, nearly magical powers to find her way to her true destiny. Shannon Hale has woven an incredible, original and magical tale of a girl who must find her own unusual talents before she can become queen of the people she has made her own.

Shannon Hale started writing books at age ten and has never stopped, earning an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana sixteen years later, and publishing The Goose Girl, her first book, not long after that. A sometime actress, instructional designer and missionary, she now makes her home in Salt Lake City, Utah with her super-human husband and their pet, a small, plastic pig.