The Book Shelf: The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass

Philip Pullman

432 Pages

Ages 9-12

Summary

In Lyra's world, every person is accompanied by an animal manifestation of their soul. Lyra and her daemon, Pan, were raised in Jordan College at Oxford. It was there that they were introduced to their adventure. Lyra's uncle (who is actually her father) came to the college to request funding for an expedition to the north where he would conduct further experiments on Dust. Her mother had a similar goal by less conventional means. Lyra's mother, the magistrate, took to abducting children and cutting their daemons away from them. Lyra, a brave and adventurous little girl with the help of a symbol reader that told you the truth in things around you, took it upon herself to put a stop to this and save the children who had been abducted. However, when she finally caught up to her father, she could not prevent him from using dust tearing a hole in the sky that would transport him to different worlds. With only slight hesitation, Lyra followed him into the sky.

Other Books in the Series:

The Subtle Knife

The Amber Spyglass

The Original Purpose

This blog actually originated as a class assignment. The first "younger reading" class I took had each student create a different note card for every book they read. The note card was to have all of the information on the book as well as a brief summary and our reaction to what we read. With my children's literature class being the second class that required a similar assignment, I decided that a blog was more practical than trying to find some place to store several hundred 3x5 notecards. Thus the birth of "The Book Shelf." I hope you enjoy my insights.