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His Dark Materials, Bk.1: The Golden Compass

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After seeing a trailer for this movie recently, and then stumbling across my copies of the series in VT, I decided to re-read them.

This story is central to Lyra Belacqua, a child without family, left in the care of Oxford College. While the college does its best to educate her, Lyra more greatly enjoys running amok with her best friend Roger, who works in the kitchens. But her curiosity and hankering to know are what lead everything into being.

Having snuck into a room she’s not meant to be in, she gets trapped, and while hiding in a closet sees a plot to poison her uncle unfold. She then warns her Uncle without thinking, and after filling him in, is left hidden to spy on the upcoming meeting. The meeting, of course, leaves her all the more curious, especially about Dust.

Then come the Gobblers, child thieves, stealing children from their families all around England, and finally coming to Oxford, where they get their hands both on Roger, and a gyptian boy Lyra knew. Lyra has little time to mourn, as she herself is about to go away, newly made assistant to the beautiful Mrs. Coulter.

Not long into her new life, Lyra grows increasingly disturbed, both by Mrs. Coulter, and her daemon, the evil golden monkey, who can roam too far from his mistress. In the end, she runs away, meeting up again with the gyptians, who hide her and keep her safe, as they know even more about her and the big picture and the gobblers than she herself does.

And so begins Lyra’s Quest to save Roger, and all the captured children, and her father, as she comes to learn Lord Asriel to be.

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The His Dark Materials, Bk.1: The Golden Compass by Jaemi, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 11:34 am by Jaemi and is filed under Book Review, Harry Potter Read-Alikes, Series, Staff Favorites. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: adventure, fantasy, magic, supernatural, ya fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.