The Northern Lights - Philip Pullman

"Without this child, we shall all die.’

Lyra Belacqua lives half-wild and carefree among the scholars of Jordan College, with her daemon, Pantalaimon, always by her side.

But the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart of a terrible struggle – a struggle born of stolen children, witch clans and armoured bears.

As she hurtles towards danger in the cold far North, Lyra never suspects the shocking truth: she alone is destined to win, or to lose, the biggest battle imaginable."

Lyra and her daemon, a animal companion and representation of their soul all humans have in Pullmans world, Pan have lived their wholes lives in Jordan College, Oxford. Lyra has been raised by the scholars there and has grown up half-wild, not listening to authority, always getting into trouble, not being the well-behaved little girl the scholars hoped she'd be. While her uncle, Lord Asriel, is visiting the college to ask for funding for his latest expedition, Lyra hides in a wardrobe and hears all about the possibility of other worlds, which Lord Asriel wishes to explore, and about Dust. This grief childish accident starts an long and treacherous journey with amazing alternate universes, scholars, witches, daemons, armoured bears, Gyptians and anything else you could possibly imagine. Pullman takes you on an incredibly journey from Jordan College to the Armoured Bear Kingdom of Svalbard. 
I've got to admit that Pullman created a wonderful new universe with all kinds of interesting elements taken from different cultures. Some if this did seem random (I noticed the odd Dutch name here and there, which to me came out of nowhere as none of the story is set there), but I do admire this element of the book enormously. The Witches and Panserbjorne where firm favourites!! However, at the end it suddenly becomes very clear that this is, in fact, a book critising religion, using the fantasy elements as a metaphor for religious terms we are all familiar with, most notably Dust as a scientific explanation to sin. To me, this came a but out of nowhere and I hope it is more fleshed out in the next book as it is a very interesting premise. 

Written as a childrens book but equally absorbing to any adult reader, I would not hesitate in recommending this first book in the Philip Pullman 'His Dark Materials' trilogy. It is wonderfully enthralling and paints a world that you long to visit. It is slow paced at the beginning but it soon ramps up with enough twists and turns to keep the pace of the plot zooming along rather nicely and many interesting characters along the way. 

Age Rating 13+. There where some adult- ish themes. The scenes of cutting the deamons where very visceral and the discovery and death of the little boy was disturbing. The battle between Iorek and Iofur was also quite brutal.