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 This book is about witches and deamons. I read it before I allowed my daughter to read it. (I will not let her read it.) It is hard to read. I had to look up words in the dictionary for meaning. When I bought the book I thought it would be something interesting and true about Oxford, England. The book is short and only takes about a hour to read.
There were some things I disliked about The Amber Spyglass which were improved in this story. For instance, I got annoyed with how much Lyra admired Will all the time, and I felt it was more balanced here: in her most frightened moment, the memory of Will helps her to be strong, but she doesn't harp on about him. The reason I gave three stars has nothing to do with the story, but the package it came in. It was very dissapointing. The main feature - the map - was nice, but a little lacking. Half the important points of the story are indicated with arrows pointing outside the map. The adverts were sort of pointless - they didn't say anything about Lyra's world; they could have come from a point in THIS world's history, and they lacked imagination. Apart from that, you didn't get much for your money. Couldn't all this have waited until The Book of Dust? Was it all just a cynical publisher's cash-in?
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This book seems to raise more questions than it answers, although it is entertaining, it's obvious that this book is just a stepping stone between HDM and the upcoming Book of Dust. The additional materials are interesting, but not amazing. I was kind of disapointed, but I'd still recommend it to HDM fans. Just to be reading about Lyra again was cool. |
Much too short. (...) I suggest not buying it. The story is so abbrieviated that not much happens. The best thing about this book is its interesting size and colour. The binding is so thick its gunna last for ages. (...)
I love HDM to itty bits, and I was thrilled with the story 'Lyra and The Birds'. It's a fantastic story, a little picture of Lyra's life, encompassing an idea very much connected with the trilogy, and raising about a dozen questions to add to the hordes we already have.
Lyra's Oxford is an enjoyable read for fans of the His Dark Materials trilogy, and whets the appetite for the upcoming 'Book of Dust'. The story is entertaining (though maybe too short for the price) but only if you have already read the main trilogy.. it simply won't make sense if you don't already know who these people are, as this is a book definitely for the fans. The extra tidbits were interesting to read through, though I thought the map was disappointing, and none of it met with the publisher's claim that it would look like it had "fallen through from another world". But I won't fault Pullman's storytelling because of that. If you enjoyed HDM and want to go deeper into Pullman's world, buy Lyra's Oxford.
