Book 1: Northern Lights / The Golden Compass

Northern Lights / The Golden Compass

The first novel in Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, published in 1995. The novel follows the story of 11 year old Lyra Belacqua (also known as Lyra Silvertongue) who lives in a parellel universe to our own with her daemon Pantalaimon, brought up an orphan in the cloistered world of Jordan College, Oxford.

One day Lyra's world is turned upside down when her friend is taken by the mysterious "Gobblers" and she vows rescue him. Their quest leads them to the bleak splendour of the North where a team of scientists are conducting unspeakably horrible experiments.. An adventure that sees talking armoured bears and not-so-wicked witches then ensues and is one of the most exciting and tense-driven stories you will ever read!

The novel won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in the UK in 1995, and in 2007 it was elected by the judges of the Carnegie Medal as one of the ten most important children's novels in the past 70 years.