The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman

Author: Phillip Pullman
Genre: Fantasy, Mystery, Action
Rating: 8.5
Teach-ability: 8
Teachable Aspects: strong character, setting, inferences/imagination, morality, protagonists/antagonists, dynamic stories.

"But you cannot change what you are, only what you do." pg 276

This book was recommended to me by Ben and Bridget. I happily took up the read as anything Bridget has ever recommended to me has been fantastic. It took me a little while to really get into the flow of reading this novel, something that I am not used to when it comes to Young Adult literature. The story was complex, and the reader has to be actively reading and thinking to really understand and grasp all of what was going on in the story.

For a while in the beginning I found that I was pushing myself to read. The story was great, the characters were phenomenal, but there was a resistance to the first portion of the book that may have been just me trying to get into it. However, the more that is read the more you grow a love for Lyra, for her well-being and for those that she cares about. For me, the read was very much emotionally driven, with great suspense, victory and empathy for those in the story. The concern for those in the story drove the reasons behind why I wanted to read.

To me, this story read as a contemporary classic. The themes of man v. nature, man v. self and man v. man are extremely prominent within the novel and occur in varying times and can be read alongside snippets of other classic texts. However, this book is one that can be related to high school readers, even if Lyra is younger than those in high school. I would question teaching this book to a classroom of middle-schoolers or even younger high school as the content and complexity is inappropriate at times but it could be an interesting unit in the later half of high school. An example can be seen in this quote, taken from page 271, "Sticks and stones I'll break yer bones but names ain't worth a quarrel." Spoken by Lee Scoresby in his unmistakable Texan accent, readers will find this quote recognizable, yet with a different meaning than the rhyme we use today. The little things--such as this quote is what makes the time period/world/era/realm of this novel so perplexing.

One factor of the book that really captured me was that of setting. The time period of this novel is completely unknown. Lyra's world seems to be modern, but there is still a feel of the 1800's. Lyra's story cannot take place in the past, because of the factors such as daemons, dust and the other realm (which, according to history books don't exist) yet other parts are too familiar, such as Jordan College in Oxford, the Aurora Borealis and the relative geography of the world.


I would recommend this book to anyone that is searching for a fantasy story that is not completely "out there" a read with a strong female character or anyone just looking for a nice story. I look forward to reading the next books in this trilogy.