Skeleton can be viewed as a compact shape representation in that the shape can be completely reconstructed form the skeleton. We present a novel method for skeleton pruning that is based on this fundamental skeleton property. We iteratively remove skeleton end braches with smallest relevance for shape reconstruction. The relevance of branches is measured as their contribution to shape reconstruction. The proposed pruning method allows us to overcome the instability of skeleton representation: a small boundary deformation leads to large changes in skeleton topology. Consequently, we are able to obtain very stable skeleton representation of planar shapes.