The Golden Compass

I was introduced to this book as a senior in high school. My school had started a reading program which required everyone on campus to read at the same time for perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes each day. On one of these days, I didn't have anything to read with me. I walked over to my Engligh instructor's shelf where I found a book with an interesting looking cover on which a large polar bear and child looked back at me, and I walked back to my seat with the book. By the time we finished our reading period, I was sad to return the book to the shelf, and spent the next few days rushing to make sure I could pick up the book again before another student beat me to it. I purchased the book that weekend, finished it, and proceeded with it's following books in a similar fashion.

Since first reading the series, I read it a few times more until perhaps two years ago when, it attempts to get my youngest sister to start reading books, I attempted to make her something much like the althiometer. (A project never finished, for the record.) Now with the movie coming to theaters next month, I had an excuse to reread this series once more.

#28 Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (November 2007)

I love this series, and perhaps did a bit too much when I was younger. I would read it to read it again after just three months, and perhaps made it so that I'm a bit tired of it now, as much as I still adore the books. Some details are foggy to me and I'm able to read a little easier, though that's more so for the later books in the series.

It must be said that all the while that I was reading Frances Hardinge's Fly by Night, I thought of Lyra Belacqua and how much Mosca Mye reminded me of her. I wondered if the two fictional girls, of similiar ages, would be friends had they known each other's stories, and felt sure they would be. Later, I must reread the two books one after the other to write some more about them.

As I finished reading this book once more, I thought how much I disliked Lyra's parents, and how much hate I had for both. Lyra is truly a brave little girl. I am very happy that her story has been made into a movie, and am very excited about watching it soon. I hope the future will see the later books in the series to be movies, as well.