Book info

• Title The Golden Compass
• Author Philip Pullman
• Year 1995
• Genre Childrens

Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal--including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world. Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want--but what Lyra doesn't know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.

Thoughts

This is a far more traditional child’s adventure story than I had been anticipating. It took me a long time to get round to reading this one, despite it being so high up on the top 100 reading list I’m working through. At first, I wasn’t really on board with it at all - daemons and Oxford college and armoured bears. But the more I read, the more it grew on me.

It was very like the Oz stories, in that a child heads off on a seemingly impossible adventure, takes many detours along the way and meets lots of people in her travels. Eventually, the goal is reached, although in this case it simply leads on to another book.

The only thing I didn’t like was the book constantly made me tired. Every time a child would arrive safe from an adventure, they would be immediately put to bed to sleep usually in front of a fire after some warm food. Mmmm, sleep.

Rating: 3 / 5