The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is fantasy writing at its best! I enjoyed the story very much and was totally drawn into it. The "moral of the story" was really well-done too, without being overly saccharine and obvious. I wish I'd read this years ago when I first heard about the book. Now I'm looking forward to reading the other two books in the series. I bought the second one at Barnes & Noble yesterday and have added it to my too-high stack of books to read.