The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials, Book 1
Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that there are some vivid descriptions of battle scenes. There are some tense escapes from evildoers, two of whom are the heroine's parents. Two children are killed. One of Lyra's virtues is her ability to lie convincingly, but she prizes friendship and loyalty. The British dialogue and clever twists on common words may confuse some Americans, but the fantasy will make readers' imaginations soar.
Families can talk about the concepts of other worlds and daemons. What is the same and what is different about Lyra's world and ours? If you had a daemon, what do you think he or she would look like? How did a character's daemon help you decide whether they were friend or foe?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
When first released, this book, the first of a trilogy, created a sensation. There has literally never been anything like it. A genre-bending fantasy, with elements of mystery and Dickensian melodrama, it was sold in both adult and young-adult categories, and brought an edgy sensibility which updated the moribund fantasy genre for the new millennium.
Nail-biting suspense grabs readers until they can't shake themselves loose from this strange world -- familiar, but definitely not the Earth we know. It has many of the same places, such as Oxford and London, but with some strange differences.
The magical quality of Lyra's world sets readers' imaginations soaring. This place is so convincingly portrayed that the experiments performed on the children seem as gruesome to the reader as to Lyra. Readers soon accept her world, and they especially love this smart, rowdy heroine. Forget about sweet, honest girls -- this scrappy street fighter uses all her wits to outfox the villains, and discovers mystical talents that she never knew she had.
Fantasy competes with roaring adventure as Lyra escapes from the menacing Mrs. Coulter, gets caught, and escapes again. She battles attacking Tartars, Gobblers, and cliff-ghasts, befriends one tribe of witches, and fights another. She also learns the unpleasant, true nature of her parents.
For avid readers, fantasy buffs, and kids who are outgrowing children's fantasies, this is a great treasure. Even reluctant readers may get hooked if you begin by reading it aloud. Since it ends in a true cliff-hanger, the next stop is The Subtle Knife
From The Book
Her first impulse was to turn and run, or to be sick. A human being with no daemon was like someone without a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out: something unnatural and uncanny that belonged to the world of night-ghasts, not the waking world of sense.
Plot Summary:
Enter a parallel world, dark and cold, with daemons, boat-dwelling gypsies, armored bears, and a street child with a strange destiny. As this feisty little heroine battles the Gobblers, who separate children from their souls, and follows a mystical device to a universe-altering confrontation in the Arctic, your teens will be gripping this book with white knuckles long past lights-out.
Children, even Lyra's best friend Roger, start disappearing, victims of mysterious kidnappers called Gobblers. Lyra is given a magical instrument that tells the future and is sent off with the glamorous Mrs. Coulter. When she learns that Mrs. Coulter runs the Gobblers, she escapes, touching off a race to save the kidnapped children.
With the help of the Gyptians, a boat-dwelling people, and Iorek Byrnison, a talking, warrior polar bear, she travels to the Arctic, where she finds that the children are being subjected to ghastly experiments that separate them from their daemons. Meanwhile Iorek battles for control of the warrior bears, and Lyra's uncle, Lord Asriel, prepares to blast a hole between worlds.
Related Books:
Other Books in This Series:
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass
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ViolenceSome vivid descriptions of battle scenes. High suspense and escapes from evildoers, two of whom are the heroine's parents. Two children are killed. Experiments are performed on children. |
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Social BehaviorOne of Lyra's virtues is her ability to lie convincingly. |
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