From Our Editors
The questions, discussion topics, and author information that
follow are intended to enhance your group's reading of The
Golden Compass. We hope that this guide will help you to
navigate - alongside the story's young protagonist, Lyra Belacqua -
Philip Pullman's richly imagined universe, populated by armored
bears, gyptians, witches, and human beings, whose dæmons are never
far from their side.
Dæmons are one of the most striking, charming, and powerful images
in The Golden Compass. These spirit-creatures,
which seem like physical representations of the human soul, can
change form to reflect the myriad of emotional states their humans
go through as children. But in adulthood, each dæmon settles into
the animal form that best reflects the inner nature of its human
counterpart. It is in this unusual and imaginative creation that
Pullman turns his sharpest mirror back onto his readers, helping us
to imagine our own souls as precious, living extensions of
ourselves that we can love, challenge, or even betray.
The Golden Compass is a complex story that turns
on a simple word: "Dust." This Dust does not gather in the unswept
corners of Jordan College, Lyra's Oxford home. Rather, this Dust
seems to reveal - or perhaps contain - the thing that makes each
human being a unique creature. The concept of Dust provokes fear in
some; others realize that mastery over Dust could be the source of
great power. Although she does not quite realize it, Lyra - along
with her dæmon Pantalaimon - finds her life inextricably entangled
with the exploration of Dust. And as her understanding of Dust and
her mastery over a mysterious tool called the alethiometer
increases, the dangerous journey that she seems destined to make
takes some astounding twists and turns.
From the Publisher
Lyra Belacqua is content to run wild among the scholars of Jodan
College, with her daemon familiar always by her side. But the
arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart
of a terrible struggle-a struggle born of Gobblers and stolen
children, witch clans and armored bears. And as she hurtles toward
danger in the cold far North, Lyra never suspects the shocking
truth: she alone is destined to win, or to lose, this
more-than-mortal battle.
Philip Pullman''s award-winning The Golden Compass is a
masterwork of storytelling and suspense, critically acclaimed and
hailed as a modern fantasy classic.
This Yearling paperback edition includes 15 pages of bonus
material: some found letters of Lord Asriel, his scientific notes
and other archival documents. This edition also features artwork by
Philip Pullman at the opening of each chapter.
From the Jacket
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.
About the Author
Philip Pullman has won many distinguished prizes, including the
Carnegie Medal for The Golden Compass (and the
reader-voted "Carnegie of Carnegies" for the best children''s book
of the past seventy years); the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the
Year Award for The Amber Spyglass; a Booker Prize
long-list nomination (The Amber Spyglass); Parents''
Choice Gold Awards (The Subtle Knife and The Amber
Spyglass); and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, in honor of
his body of work. In 2004, he was appointed a Commander of the
Order of the British Empire.
Philip Pullman is the author of many books for young readers,
including two volumes related to the His Dark Materials trilogy:
Lyra''s Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North.
He lives in Oxford, England. To learn more, please visit
www.philip-pullman.com and www.hisdarkmaterials.com.
Bookclub Guide
The questions, discussion topics, and author information that
follow are intended to enhance your group''s reading of The
Golden Compass. We hope that this guide will help you to
navigate - alongside the story''s young protagonist, Lyra Belacqua
- Philip Pullman''s richly imagined universe, populated by armored
bears, gyptians, witches, and human beings, whose dæmons are never
far from their side.
Dæmons are one of the most striking, charming, and powerful images
in The Golden Compass. These spirit-creatures,
which seem like physical representations of the human soul, can
change form to reflect the myriad of emotional states their humans
go through as children. But in adulthood, each dæmon settles into
the animal form that best reflects the inner nature of its human
counterpart. It is in this unusual and imaginative creation that
Pullman turns his sharpest mirror back onto his readers, helping us
to imagine our own souls as precious, living extensions of
ourselves that we can love, challenge, or even betray.
The Golden Compass is a complex story that turns
on a simple word: "Dust." This Dust does not gather in the unswept
corners of Jordan College, Lyra''s Oxford home. Rather, this Dust
seems to reveal - or perhaps contain - the thing that makes each
human being a unique creature. The concept of Dust provokes fear in
some; others realize that mastery over Dust could be the source of
great power. Although she does not quite realize it, Lyra - along
with her dæmon Pantalaimon - finds her life inextricably entangled
with the exploration of Dust. And as her understanding of Dust and
her mastery over a mysterious tool called the alethiometer
increases, the dangerous journey that she seems destined to make
takes some astounding twists and turns.
Philip Pullman has won many distinguished prizes, including the
Carnegie Medal for The Golden Compass (and the
reader-voted "Carnegie of Carnegies" for the best children''s book
of the past seventy years); the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the
Year Award for The Amber Spyglass; a Booker Prize
long-list nomination (The Amber Spyglass); Parents''
Choice Gold Awards (The Subtle Knife and The Amber
Spyglass); and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, in honor of
his body of work. In 2004, he was appointed a Commander of the
Order of the British Empire.
Philip Pullman is the author of many books for young readers,
including two volumes related to the His Dark Materials trilogy:
Lyra''s Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North.
He lives in Oxford, England. To learn more, please visit
www.philip-pullman.com and www.hisdarkmaterials.com.
Trade Paperback
432 Pages, 5.25 x 7.61 x 1.09 IN
May 22, 2001
Random House Children's Books
English
0440418321
9780440418320