His Dark Materials #1: Northern Lights

Voted the best Carnegie winner of the past 70 years – and we reckon it’s earned every drop of praise tenfold. First in Philip Pullman’s epic trilogy: an all-time fantasy great. To read it is to witness magic. This is a book so beloved that you, the public, chose it as your favourite Carnegie Medal winner ever. It’s a journey to an Arctic wilderness where witch-queens ride the icy skies, armoured bears roam the snow, and cruel scientists conduct experiments of unspeakable terror. A journey that will take one brave girl, Lyra, to the very edge of her world…

  • The wondrous first book of His Dark Materials trilogy
  • The most acclaimed children’s fantasy of modern times
  • Voted the greatest Carnegie Medal winner in 70 years
  • Bursting with excitement, danger and wild imagination

“Rarely, if ever, have readers been offered such a casket of wonders.” Independent

most of you liked this

Recent reviews

  • loved it

    Read this in Year Five! It is a great book, capturing and interesting. It delivers such a powerful message and I loved it! The first time I read it I was a bit confused but once I’d read it again I understood it completely! Would recommend for 10+ years because then you can understand it. Must read it! Five stars!

    18 March 2018

  • I think that Northern Lights is a great book but I think that the bit when they try too split Lyra from Panterlamon and it just jumps up on you and you don’t really realise it until later on at the big battle!

    But I still really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really…...... love it because it still is wonderfully amazing!

    MegaMila :-)

    9 March 2015

  • After watching the film ‘The Golden Compass’ I decided to give this book a try. I thought this book was great! I loved how inventive Philip Pullman was and found Lyra to be a great character.

    8 March 2014

  • this is the stuff dreams are made of, magical book!

    5 March 2014

  • This is an amazing story!!!!! I am listening to the 2nd one at the moment:)

    9 September 2013

See all reviews

Who's reading this?

Authors

  • Photo of Philip Pullman

    Philip Pullman

    Philip Pullman is probably the world’s most acclaimed living children’s author, best known for the trilogy of books known as His Dark Materials.

    Awards

    Philip won the Nestle Smarties award for both Clockwork and The Firework Maker’s Daughter. Northern Lights was published in hardback in July 1995. That year, it won the Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and was Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards.

    The Amber Spyglass won WHSmith Children’s Book of the Year 2000 at the British Book Awards, was Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal and was longlisted for The Booker Prize 2001. Philip Pullman was voted Whitaker Author of the Year by the Booksellers Association. The Amber Spyglass went on to win both Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and Whitbread Book of the Year 2001 and in doing so became the first children’s book to win the main prize in the award’s history.

    Philip has also been recognised with two major awards for his contribution to literature: the Eleanor Farjeon award in 2002, and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Prize in 2005.

Rate this book

  1. loved it
  2. liked it
  3. okay
  4. not for me
  5. rubbish
Write about this book