The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman shared by ngkin

A summary for the book The Golden Compass. It's about a girl called Lyra Belacqua going to the north to rescue her friend roger but get betrayed by her uncle Lord Asriel who was actually Lyra's father. Children started disappearing one day because of the Gobblers. There were many theories about the gobblers. One was they experimented on children, the other was that they eat children, and another was that they kill children in any way they could imagine etc. So after Lyra and her friend Roger went down to explore a crypt, they met a professor. The professor told Roger to go back to the kitchen to help them while Lyra was to go back to the college and try to do some girlish things then boyish things like climb on a roof then hurl stones at people and get into fights and stuff. Roger was kidnapped by the Gobblers. Lyra was sad but when she saw Mrs. Coulter, she wanted to be with her for she was very kind and wise. Lyra had wanted to go to the north very much to explore like her uncle Lord Asriel. Mrs. Coulter told her this but Lyra soon realized that they were never going to go north but stay in london and meet really important people. She ran away only to be caught by turkish slave traders. Luckily, some gyptians who knew Lyra came and killed the turks. Lyra told them her story and adopted her. Lyra felt like a gyptian because she was actually of some use and had to do some things like chores on board the ship. The gyptians were people who spent a lot of their lives sailing in the water. When the gyptians stopped at a place called the Fens, they started to decide to whether or not to take Lyra to the north to rescue the kids. Lyra had received a gift from the master of Jordan that could tell the truth if you turned the 3 needles to the correct symbols and framed the meanings of them in your head, the 4th needle would swing and tell the answer. She met Farder Coram, a really old dude who is smart and studied a lot, who told her some of the meanings of the symbols. Lyra was not sure about the alethiometer, the gift, and asked it a question. It said that Mrs. Coulter was angry and sent clockwork flies after her. When night came, Lyra went up on deck and was attacked by clockwork flies. Farder Coram saw this and decided it was best to take Lyra along with the Gyptians. They stopped at Trollesund and met a bear called Iorek Byrnison. He was tricked by the locals because they wanted his armour. To the bears, their armour was their soul just like the daemons that belonged to humans. Lyra consulted the alethiometer and told the bear where it was. He went on a rampage to get his armour back and indeed he did. They also met a guy called Lee Scoresby who was an aeronaut and owned to balloons that could take them anywhere the wind took them. They went on north and Lyra was captured by the samoyeds and was given to the gobblers. She was then taken to a station but everyone called it Bolvangar, the evil field, for nothing existed within a mile of it. She was then experimented on and people began to sever the link between daemon and human. Mrs Coulter appeared out of nowhere (literally) and stopped the process. Lyra gathered her wits after that and signaled for the children there to run and escape. Iorek Byrnison who was Lyra's guardian came in time before the men guarding the place fired their rifles. A battle raged afterwards for the gyptians also came to fight the men known as tartars guarding Bolvangar. the gyptians won. After that, Lyra went to svalbard, the kingdom of the bears, so Iorek could get his freedom back for he was exiled because of killing another bear. Iorek came 24 hours later and fought the bear king, Iofur Raknison, who was changing the old ways of the bears. Iorek won and was no longer an outcast and became king. They went north to free lord Asriel. Lord asriel want a child so he could finish what he wanted, build a bridge to another world. He saw Lyra and nearly fainted but when he saw the recently rescued Roger, he calmed down. Some time later, he took roger up to a mountain to finish what he wanted. Lyra followed. Lord asriel had already wandered into another world and Lyra decided to follow.