num_pages: 351
description: In a landmark epic of fantasy and storytelling, Philip Pullman invites readers into a world as convincing and thoroughly realized as Narnia, Earthsea, or Redwall.  Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors.  First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe.  He leaves Lyra in the care of  Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her.  In this multilayered  narrative, however, nothing is as it seems. Lyra sets out for the top of the world in search of her kidnapped playmate, Roger, bearing a rare truth-telling instrument, the compass of the title.  All around her children are disappearing—victims of so-called "Gobblers"—and being used as subjects in terrible experiments that separate humans from their daemons, creatures that reflect each person's inner being.  And somehow, both Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are involved.  
language: English
title: The Golden Compass
titlecomplete: The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)
characters: Lord Asriel, Lyra Belacqua, Billy Costa, John Faa, Roger Parslow, Farder Coram, Marisa Coulter, Iorek Byrnison, Serafina Pekkala, Lee Scoresby, Hester, Pantalaimon, Iofur Raknison
genres: Middle Grade, Audiobook, Childrens, Science Fiction, Young Adult, Steampunk, Fantasy, Classics, Adventure, Fiction
ratings_count: 1487724
places: Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, Svalbard, Spitsbergen
series: His Dark Materials
awards: awardedAt: 820483200000
name: Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Audie Award
category: Children's Titles, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Lincoln Award, awardedAt: 788947200000
name: Carnegie Medal
publisher: Del Rey