Summary & Evaluation: Lyra Belacqua, an orphan, and her daemon Pantalaimon are confined to the stuffy halls of academia and scholarship at the Jordan College--but after hearing about a dangerous arctic expedition and its discovery of mysterious Dust from the terrifying Lord Asriel, Lyra's world begins to expand beyond the confines of the College. Danger begins to lurk around every corner as the malicious child-snatchers, known as the Gobblers, haunt the city and, unknowingly, Lyra enters into their company by becoming the assistant to their leader, the alluring Mrs. Coulter. Lyra escapes their clutches and begins a journey that takes her to the arctic, with her new-found friends--gypsies, witches, armored bears and a balloon pilot--who help her to free the abducted children.
I picked up The Golden Compass partly because of its upcoming movie release, but also because I told a friend of mine that I was looking for a good YA fantasy novel and he recommended it as his favorite. After reading it, I can certainly understand why it's being made into a movie, and why my friend liked it so much--when you have armored bears (with the awesome name of panserbjorn), witches and gypsies and the book is set in a Victorian-type England, how could it not be good? There are a lot of veiled (and unveiled) swipes at the Catholic Church throughout the novel, which might go over the heads of some readers or anger others (especially their parents, if they're onto it) but it doesn't really get in the way of the driving narrative, with Lyra running from college to Gobblers to gypsies to the arctic--and then on, to another universe.
Booktalk Hook: As mentioned, there's going to be a movie adaptation of this novel released soon (December 2007) so it wouldn't be hard to get interest up for this novel, especially since the series (His Dark Materials) is already so popular.
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