Gift Guide: Best Books for Teens

The Golden Compass

At first glance, this story starts off slowly, with a plodding and pedantic plot, as a young girl, Lyra, is drawn into an assassination attempt and a mystery. Children are disappearing—just as the debate increases about a scientific discovery of a strange substance called Dust. The adventure takes Lyra and her animal spirit, or daemon, from the academic life at Oxford to glamorous and bustling London and the glowing lights of the Aurora Borealis.

Author: By Philip Pullman

Tell It Like It Is: Part fable and part suspense novel, The Golden Compass unfolds as a powerful testament to the human condition, with swirling elements of theology, science, and religion. The assorted characters include scholars, Gyptians, Arctic explorers, scientists, children, witches, mercenaries, and civilized bears. Like an alchemist, Pullman forges a provocative fiction, one that is grounded in both intellect and faith, reality and fantasy.

Price: $22.50 retail, varying prices at PriceGrabber.com

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