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Awards
Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Children's fiction in the UK in 1995
Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Award in 1996
Winner of the British Book Award for "Children's Book of the Year" in 1997
A Horn Book Fanfare Honor Book
A Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Booklist Editors' Choice-- Top of the List
A Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection
A 1997 Children's ABBY Honor Book
What the Experts Have to Say
Christina Hardyment, The Independant:
"Rarely if ever have readers been offered such a rich casket of wonders"
Jan Mark, Times Educational Supplement:
"It is a rousing, fast-paced, occasionally violent adventure with a young adolescent heroine who bears more than a resemblance to Huckleberry Finn, and it is a leisurely, probing, moral debate. It is also beautifully written, shocking, moving, intellectually funny and displays the most magnificen invention... At the simplest level, everyone gets a great story"
Maureen Own, The Times:
"The threats of fantasy, terror and grandiose follies are merged with unusual and mesmerising skill"
Lindsay Fraser, The Scotsman:
"This is one of those books which one can hardly bear to close; an astonishingly gripping and convincing story"
Joanna Carey, The Guardian:
"Like Alan Garner...he anchors his parallel world to the one we know with strong descriptive writing which gives the reader a firm foothold in the narrative. The story, with it's spirited 12-year-old heroine Lyra, takes the classic form of a quest and deals with colossal, often terrifying themes - one of which is the relationship between the body and the soul. An eye-widening fantasy, a scorching thriller and a thought-provoking reflection on the human condition, this is a book that can be enjoyed at many levels."
Wendy Cooling, Books For Keeps:
"Read this powerfully written story and you, too, will be waiting for Book 2."
Junior Education:
"The sort of book that surfaces only once in a while, ultimately to establish itself as a classic."
Nina Bawden, The Evening Standard:
"The first volume in an impressively realised fantasy set in a solid and convincing universe ... the child inside this grown-up read on with bared breath and was left dangeling in terror at the end. Luckily there is hope in the promise of the next volume, which is to be set entirely in our world. I find it hard to wait."
Lloyd Alexander, author of the Prydian Chronicles, Newberry Medallist for The High King:
"I'm enormously impressed. It's a rich combination of high fantasy, high drama and intense emotion ... Philip Pullman's creation is a world thoroughly realized, completely convincing. Best yet, this volume promises to be the beginning of an ongoing major literary effort. Readers can only wait impatiently."
Lois Lowry, Newberry Medallist for The Giver and Number the Stars:
"I was sorry it didn't go on and on - and pleased to see that it is only Book One, so that I have Two and Three to look forward to. It really is an absorbing fantasy, both because of the many-layered and suspenseful plot but - even more - because of the endearingly spunky heroine and her charmingly variable sidekick, who made me long for a personal dæmon myself. An original and fascinating novel."
In Brief Magazine:
"This is a wonderful adventure, exciting, thrilling, set in a near-familiar world of fantasy. Technically Northern Lights (The Golden Compass) is a triumph, and the feeling that the book holds is electric and captures your imagination. This is one of the best books I have ever read (and I'm not exaggerating)."
Detroit Free Press:
"Extraordinary story-telling at it's very best .. really could become required reading for children of all ages."
The Boston Sunday Globe:
"A fantasy adventure that sparkles with childlike wonder but is overlaid with a darker enigmatic intensity ... a work of powerful imagery and vivid setting and characters."
Publishers Weekly:
"Pullman is a master at combining impeccable characterizations and seamless plotting, maintaining a crackling pace to create scene upon scene of almost unbearable tension. This glittering gem will leave readers of all ages eagerly awaiting the next installment of Lyra's adventures."