Are you a home educator whose kids are interested in The Golden Compass? Would you like the opportunity to get together with other home-schooling families to discuss the book? Join us! We are a group of families with kids of all ages, coming together to share the experience of reading this both celebrated and controversial book by author Philip Pullman.

The goal of the group is to give both children and parents a chance to socialize and to discuss our thoughts on the book. Come together to share resources, and to view each other’s presentations. Our first meeting was a preliminary meet & greet. At our second meeting we will discuss the types of projects each family (or child) will be doing (projects are optional, but highly recommended - you can just come to watch the presentations.) The third meeting will be the actual presentation of the projects. Finally, we have been discussing the possibility of going together to see the film. Watch this space for the next meeting dates. Even if you haven’t yet begun to read the book, there is still time to pick it up! Need to get a copy of the book? You can buy it in English or French, or borrow it from the library!

Meetings are to be held Tuesdays at 1:30pm, at the Mile End Children’s Library, 5434 Avenue du Parc (downstairs.) Access the library by taking bus 80 from Place des Arts, bus 160 from Beaubien, or bus 51 from Laurier.

The Golden Compass is the first in the trilogy of His Dark Materials by acclaimed author Philip Pullman. It is also available under the UK title Northern Lights. The books are an alternative recounting of the Fall, inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost as well as by authors such as Dante and William Blake. The series has sold over 15 million copies. For Northern Lights Pullman won not only the 1995 Carnegie Medal for best book of the year (the only children’s book to ever earn the honour) but also the 2007 “Carnegie of Carnegies“, celebrating the best writing in the 70-year history of the award.

It was important to keep the chapel up to date, because Jordan College had no rival, either in Europe or in New France, as a center of experimental theology. Lyra knew that much, at least. She was proud of her College’s eminence, and liked to boast of it to the various urchins and ragamuffins she played with by the canal or the claybeds; and she regarded visiting Scholars and eminent professors from elsewhere with pitying scorn, because they didn’t belong to Jordan and so must know less, poor things, than the humblest of Jordan’s under-Scholars.

As for what experimental theology was, Lyra had no more idea than the urchins. She had formed the notion that it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really. Probably the stars had dæmons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them. Lyra imagined the Chaplain speaking loftily, listening to the star dæmons’ remarks, and then nodding judiciously or shaking his head in regret. But what might be passing between them, she couldn’t conceive…..

The evening sky was awash with peach, apricot, cream: tender little ice-cream clouds in a wide orange sky. The spires and towers of Oxford stood around them, level but no higher; the green woods of Château - Vert and White Ham rose on either side to the east and the west. Rooks were cawing somewhere, and bells were ringing, and from the oxpens the steady beat of a gas engine announced the ascent of the evening Royal Mail zeppelin for London. Lyra watched it climb away beyond the spire of St. Michael’s Chapel, as big at first as the tip of her little finger when she held it at arm’s length, and then steadily smaller until it was a dot in the pearly sky.

She turned and looked down into the shadowed quadrangle, where the black-gowned figures of the Scholars were already beginning to drift in ones and twos toward the buttery, their dæmons strutting or fluttering alongside or perching calmly on their shoulders. The lights were going on in the Hall; she could see the stained-glass windows gradually beginning to glow as a servant moved up the tables lighting the naphtha lamps. The Steward’s bell began to toll, announcing half an hour before dinner.

This was her world. She wanted it to stay the same forever and ever, but it was changing around her, for someone out there was stealing children.
~ Chapter 3

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Other resources you might find interesting:

My other posts on The Golden Compass, particularly
Golden Compass Activities

Read the first three chapters online

The Science of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials by John & Mary Gribbin
(A.A. Knopf, 2005, ISBN 0375831444)
| Library - in English or French | Purchase - in English or French |

The Magical Worlds of Philip Pullman by David Colbert
(McArthur, 2006, ISBN 155278617X)
| Library | Purchase |

Navigating the Golden Compass edited by Glenn Yeffeth
(Benbella, 2005, ISBN 1932100520)
Purchase

Exploring Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials by Lois Gresh
(Griffin, 2007, ISBN 031234743X)
| Library | Purchase |

Paradise Lost by John Milton, commentary by Philip Pullman
(Oxford, 2005, ISBN 019280619X)
Purchase

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Official movie trailer:

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

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