Book Review of The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

 1. Bibliography

Pullman, P. 1996. The golden compass. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN: 9780679879244

2. Plot Summary

In this book we follow Lyra Belacqua and her spiritual animal Pantalaimon (Pan). Lyra

lives at Jordan College in Oxford where she overheard a conversation between the

scholars who work there about a substance called “Dust”. This substance is believed to

connect different worlds together. Soon after she overhears this conversation, children

start disappearing in the town. One of those children is her friend Roger who Lyra is

determined to rescue. Lyra is offered to go on an adventure North with a woman named

Mrs. Coulter. Lyra is excited for this journey and receives a special gift from the Master

of Jordan College; a “golden compass” which has the power to answer any question.

When Lyra finds out Mrs. Coulter is involved in the disappearing children and doing

experiments on them to separate them from their spiritual animals, she has many different

battles to face to help her friend Roger and other children who have experienced this

terrible fate. Lyra has help from many different allies during her adventure including an

armored bear, a Texas aeronaut, and a witch. In a final battle, Lyra vows to find out the

truth about “Dust” and leaves her world behind to get the answers she has been wanting

to know.

3. Critical Analysis

Pullman takes young readers to experience other worlds where their imagination can run

wild. Young readers will experience complex moral themes and spiritual exploration.

We can see connections between our “spirit” and our physical bodies and how our spirits

can help us with our self-discovery and our free will. Pullman also shows us how

powerful tensions can be between authority and having one’s freedom. Following Lyra,

readers can experience how she handles challenges to authority and the wanting to know

the truth. We also explore innocence and the power of knowledge in this story with Lyra

and her golden compass that can only be used by people who still have their innocence

meaning still in their childhood. When you get more knowledge, your innocence starts to

wear off because the truth of the world is shown to you. These truths can also help you

find yourself in the process as well. We also investigate the balance of science and ethics,

where we see in the story how science experiments can defy ethics because of the way

they are hurting children. Pullman has made very complex characters in his story with

multiple perspectives on the world and different views. We see a lot of personal

discoveries in Lyra and young readers can see how she grows and changes over the

course of the book and connects to their own lives.

4. Review Excerpts

“Pullman (The Tin Princess, 1994, etc.) returns to the familiar territory of Victorian

England, but this time inhabits an alternate Earth, where magic is an ordinary fact of

life.”-Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Carnegie Medal for The Golden Compass (and the reader-voted "Carnegie of Carnegies"

for the best children's book of the past seventy years)

5. Connections

*Other books in the Dark Materials Series

-The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman-Book 2

-The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman-Book 3