Northern Lights

By Philip Pullman

The first in Pullman's "Dark Materials" trilogy, this book was made into a film recently, starring Michelle Pfeiffer as the evil person, which I haven't seen but I think I will get on on DVD so I can take a look. I liked it! I know, I know, it's one of those books for "young adults", but those young adult books are still some of my favourites. And, they're also quite easy to read because they aren't trying to be all post-modern or redefine the novel or anything.

The story is set in another kind of alternate reality world, a bit 19th century but where humans are born with "daemons", who seem to be little spirits that are attached to you for ever and can change their form to look like different animals. Cool - I want one!! I wouldn't mind a little mousie companion that could change into a tiger when I was cranky. (That is, they can keep changing until you hit puberty, when they decide on one form and stay that way. Apparently, the servant classes tend to have dogs as daemons. Who knew the class system and speciest stereotypes could even persist into fictional alternate realities??). Lyra is our young heroine, a bit of a bossy tomboy type growing up in an Oxford College. True to the best "young adult" fiction, Lyra has no parents around to bug her - only a bunch of Oxford dons. However, someone out there is kidnapping children, and soon Lyra is caught up in a gripping adventure. Liked it a lot - apparently there has been a lot of hoo-hah about this series because it is seen to be criticising the Church. I dunno, it didn't really occur to me while I was reading it, but then it wouldn't, would it??

Must buy the next in the series...only the edition with the nice linocut-style illustrations like above, though...oh yes, have to note that the wicked woman in this book has a daemon who takes the form of - a golden monkey!! (Ha HA!!! I told youse all they were trouble...).

Rating: 8 out of 10