Pan is really worried about getting caught snooping. Now they're trapped! Lyra and Pan hide in a large oak wardrobe. The Master leaves, but before Lyra and Pan can get out of the room, the Steward's bell rings.Then Lyra sees something that bothers her: the Master pours a folded paper of white powder into the decanter of Tokay.He is involved in exploring and politics and all sorts of mysterious grownup things. Lyra is excited by the mention of Lord Asriel, her uncle, a 'man whom she admired and feared greatly' (1.29).The Master asks if the servant has decanted the Tokay (a type of liquor) for Lord Asriel.The Master asks if Lord Asriel has arrived yet.The Master of Jordan College comes in with a servant, whose daemon is a dog.Suddenly there's a noise in the hall, and Pan directs Lyra to hide behind a chair.Pan (Pantalaimon's nickname) wants to abort the mission, but Lyra decides to sit in one of the green leather armchairs.The Retiring Room is in Jordan College, part of Oxford University, where Lyra has lived most of her life.We can tell that her daemon, whose name is Pantalaimon, is a bit of a scaredy cat, and that Lyra is the one leading this expedition. On the way Lyra stops in the hall to flick the Master's crystal glass, making it ring.Lyra and her daemon sneak into the Master's Retiring Room, where they've never been and they're not supposed to go.“Arguably the best juvenile fantasy novel of the past twenty years.” -The Washington Post Winner of the Guardian Prize for Children’s Fiction North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.Ĭan one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want.īut what Lyra doesn’t know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other…Ī masterwork of storytelling and suspense, Philip Pullman’s award-winning The Golden Compass is the first in the His Dark Materials series, which continues with The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal–including her friend Roger. Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. The modern fantasy classic that Entertainment Weekly named an “All-Time Greatest Novel” and Newsweek hailed as a “Top 100 Book of All Time.” Philip Pullman takes readers to a world where humans have animal familiars and where parallel universes are within reach.

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