The Golden Compass

I'd seen the movie a while back and I can't say it left much of an impression. The book, however, I really liked reading. It was quick and clear and I just blew through the pages. It all starts in the retiring room of Jordan College where Lyra first hears of Dust, aureous borealis and the city hidden inside it, and the armored bears. It's also here that Lyra saves her uncle from the master's poison. Then she's wisked away but Mrs. Courteur, her unknown mother, and is given the altheimeter upon her departure. After finding out Mrs. Courteur is a Gobbler, she escapes from her and begins the true adventure which takes her North with the gyptians. As their name suggests I found the gyptians to be kind of a watery mix between gypsies and egyptians. They take Lyra by sea to a town where they get dog sleds, an aeronaut, and an armored bear and continue on towards the prison where kidnapped children are cut from their daemons. Lyra causes a jailbreak just as her friends arrive to fight off the guards. She escapes into the aeronaut's balloon and floats to the king of the armored bears' castle. There she arranges a fight between the bear she has befriended and the king. The book ends with her deciding to follow her uncle into the city in the Northern Lights.