The first thing that I did when I finished this book was to order it's two companion books to complete the trilogy 'His Dark Materials'. The second thing was to write this review...
Northern Lights is one of the best pieces of fantasy fiction that I've read. Although written for young adults I found it gripping, from the first I was hooked. It tells the story of a young girl, Lyra, who lives in a world both similar and very different from our own. Her curiosity leads her to overhear her Uncle Lord Asriel telling of his expedition to the north, of a strange city in the sky glimpsed through the aurora and of the mysterious Dust. Then children start to disappear and Lyra's adventure begins.
I came across Northern Lights when I heard an interview with the author on Radio 4's 'Devout Sceptics' in which 'His Dark Materials' was compared with C.S. Lewis's 'Chronicles of Narnia'. It seems that Philip Pullman does have a message to preach, although one quite different from C.S. Lewis, and one that apparently may upset more religious readers. So be warned.
399 pages, Scholastic
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