Philip Pullman was born in Norwich, England, in 1946, but has lived in Wales, Zimbabwe and Australia. After he finished college, he became a teacher and taught in schools near Oxford, England until 1986 when he started publishing stories and novels. Now he is a full time writer.
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. The first book in the trilogy, His Dark Materials.
In an alternate universe, twelve year old Lyra Belacqua is an orphan who has been raised by the teachers of Jordan College in Oxford University, England. In this universe that looks very much like our world in the early 1900's, each person shares their life with a daemon-creature that acts something like their conscience, but which is a physical presence. Lyra's is sometimes a mouse, sometimes a wildcat and follows her everywhere.
A famous adventurer/explorer she knows as her uncle, Lord Asriel, is visiting her and the college to get money for his next exploration, a journey to the Arctic Circle in search of a mysterious substance known as "dust". Lyra hides in a closet while Lord Asriel gives his presentation to the directors of the College and discovers that several of the directors are planning to poison Lord Asriel to stop his research into the nature of "dust". He survives the plot, thanks to Lyra, and makes his preparations to leave for the Arctic. But he first gives Lyra a precious golden compass which, in the hands of a skilled user, can answer any question put to it.
Lyra becomes skilled in using the golden compass and starts to use it to find out what has happened to a friend of hers, Roger Parslow. She discovers that Roger has been kidnapped by a mysterious organization called the Gobblers who are said to steal children to be used in experiments with "dust". Lyra is worried. Her investigations bring her into contact with the beautiful Mrs. Coulter who enthralls the impressionable Lyra with her charm and grace.
But subtle details start revealing that Mrs. Coulter knows about the kidnapped children and may, in fact, be responsible for their disappearance. Asking the golden compass helps Lyra figure out the evil plot behind the kidnapping, but to save her friend and the other kidnapped children, she must brave a journey to the far north, enlist the help of a strange group of vagabonds called the Gyptians, and make an even stranger friendship with a warrior polar bear named Iorek. The dangers she must face are many, the outcome of her quest is never certain, and the influence of "dust" remains a mystery.
