Children are disappearing without a trace. Lyra
feels her world at Oxford is safe, that is until her best friend, Roger, goes
missing. Determined to find her friend, Lyra sets out with her daemon, a soul
mate in animal form, and uncovers a secret government experiment that would
destroy everything she loves about her world.
The Golden Compass is a good book for teenage girls
because of the incredible fantasy world that the reader is thrust into. When we
first meet Lyra she's a daring kid who likes to push her freedom, but by the
end she's a savvy traveler of worlds who creates amazing adventure by being strong-willed
and stubborn. A perfect read for the teen who loves, fantasy adventure, new
worlds and creatures, as well as scientific magic.
The Golden Compass trailer
In a landmark epic of fantasy and storytelling, Philip Pullman invites readers
into a world as convincing and thoroughly realized as Narnia, Earthsea, or
Redwall. Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life
among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two
powerful visitors. First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence
of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious
celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the
Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe. He leaves
Lyra in the care of Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers
to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her. In this multilayered
narrative, however, nothing is as it seems. Lyra sets out for the top of the
world in search of her kidnapped playmate, Roger, bearing a rare truth-telling
instrument, the compass of the title. All around her children are disappearing,
victims of so-called "Gobblers", and being used as subjects in terrible
experiments that separate humans from their daemons, creatures that reflect each
person's inner being. And somehow, both Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are
involved.