Rating: 
Summary: The Golden Compass; A great follow up to Harry Potter.
Review: After finishing the 4th Harry Potter book I moped around for a few days lamenting the fact that the next installment isn't due for publication for quite some time. Luckily, a friend of mine suggested the Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman. Five pages in to The Golden Compass I was hooked. With a "Potter like" fervor I ripped through the first book in two very long nights. After which I was useless at work, but just as satisfied as when I first discovered the work of J.K. Rowlings. A great read!A note to parents: The world that Pullman conjurs is a bit darker than Harry Potter's. There is more violence and some very frightening situations. I'd say 11 and up would be a good age for these books.
Rating:
Summary: His Dark Materials
Review: ... About a month ago, desperate for something I could loose myself in, I picked up "The Golden Compass." It was in the "young - mature" or some-such section of the bookstore, and I was put off until I read the frontpiece. It seems to me any book that begins with a (truly frightening) quote from "Paradise Lost" deserves a much broader placement than "young - mature." I raced through the trilogy, glad the only wait I had to experience between volumes was the time it took to catch my breath. "His Dark Materials," is a deep climb into myth and archetype that is the hero's journey, a critique of organized religion, a travelogue of alternate worlds, and a breathtaking adventure. Philip Pullman has pulled together a cast of characters that seems to touch on the entire diversity of Western mythology, including the wild-western; as well as every dark bedroom fear of childhood. The trilogy is grounded in the coming-of-age story of his protagonists (Lyra and Will), and flies into fantasy with the telling of a new age in the universe. As a writer Mr. Pullman works a dynamic that races with gore and violence, gentles in natural idyll, provokes with psychology, philosophy, theology, and what some would call "heresy," and compels with deft plotting, and well crafted characters. I'm glad I read this series as an adult, wish I had read it as a 12 year old, would recommend it to the mature young reader with no hesitation, and to the older reader who has not lost his or her sense of wonder.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and suspenseful
Review: A rare gem in the science fiction/fantasy genre, this series has a female heroine, Lyra. We follow Lyra throughout the series as she encounters intense mysteries and drama. Although this is a fantasy book series, it is superbly written and is excellent in making the reader become so engrossed that they nearly forget where they are. I would use these books with high school, reluctant reader girls, since it's an excellent story about a girl who saves the world. They would learn from this book that girls are also craft, witty, and brilliant. Another group that I would recommend this series to are advanced high school readers as I believe these books have direct references to Paradise Lost and also make general remarks on religion. In fact by the final book, your idea of religion is completely obscured. I think it would be interesting for them to do a compare/contrast with Paradise lost of perhaps how the series develops a theme of religion.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth a trip to your local library
Review: I have read a great deal of bad, and extremely bad sci-fi, and fantasy books. I'm unsure why it is that those two genras of fiction are so often bent on pornography and unreasonable amounts of blood-shed. What I like about this trilogy, having just finished the last book a couple nights back, is the stark lack of either of these characteristics that generally typtify the scope of sci-fi/fantasy. It echos the emotions and ideas/interests of other great(er) stories --The Little Prince or the Narnia Series for philosophy and theology, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for description of worlds, like our own, yet so terribly beautiful and different, and The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings for the increadibly important and epic battle between good (right) and evil (wrong). The hero and heroine are sympathetic characters, they are 'human' (neither perfectly good nor increadibly bad). They are forced by circumstance (a.k.a. the author's slightly heavy-handed manipulation of his characters) to make adult choices and through that process grow up themselves, feel love, and change the world(s) around them. In short (though it's already too late for that), it's good, honest writing, that deserves more than one reading by anyone old enough (or young enough in spirit) to be considered a "young adult."
Rating: 
Summary: Very Original - Very Dull
Review: It was after the whole BBC's "The Big Read" that the Dark Materials trilogy came to my attension (it being in the top five finalistss). I saw the first book in a shop the week after and bought it, and eventually read all three novels. I must admitt that the way that Pullman adresses the ideas of religeon in this controversal way is fun to read. I also can't deny that Pullman has one of the greatest imaginative brains that I have come across in an author. But I found it quite dull really - it never reallly held me as well as much as most other books have.
Rating:
Summary: Quite simply one of the greatest fantasies of all time
Review: There are so many fassets to this book that will ensure that it will be as famous in 200 years as Dickens is today.
The story is artfully weaved and entwined so that it is always growing bigger and more encompasing, while retaining the sense of tension and magnitude from the begginning to the end.
The characters are full of life and colour so much so that you feel you know them intimately from only a few pages of their story.
I could not put down any of the books and since have read them many times, absolutley incredeible, even magical. And far and away so much better than the comparitively dull and lifeless Harry Potter!
Rating:
Summary: the amber spyglass
Review: The Amber Spyglass, the third book in a series called His Dark Materials, is one of the best books I have read. In this book Will must find Lyra, and save her from Mrs. Coulter. When he finds her they decide that they want to go to the relm of the dead and try to find Wills father and Lyras friend. They find this more diffucult then they had thought it would be. This is a great book and is a book you cant put down. I would highly suggest it to anyone who enjoys fantasy books.
Rating:
Summary: the amber spyglass
Review: The Amber Spyglass is the third book in a series called His Dark Materials. At the end of book two Lyra and Will get separated, and before Will can go to Lord Asriel and help him in his fight to save the worlds from destruction, he must save Lyra from the hands of her evil mother. When they finally come together they are given another task, to free the dead from the hell they live in. They end up getting caught up in a battle between good and evil and now they must figure out which side they are on.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but quite advanced
Review: When I first started reading the series (second book, then first book, then third book) I was in 4th grade. I was too young to understand the adult themes, sub-text (I was really naive and didn't realize how anti-Christian Philip Pullman was aside from feeling there was something odd about how the Church was the bad guy, and actually thought,"Well, they're only bad guys in the other universe so that doesn't mean anything.") but I knew one thing: It was very compelling, interesting, and I still wanted to read it even though it was a bit advanced for me. I still think the book is fascinating and re-readable and I recommend it. As for the anti-Christian themes, I don't really care about them but then again I'm not Christian. But anyone that is young enough to be easily affected by what they read is too young to realize it's Anti-Christian anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Extrordinary
Review: In my life I have read a good amount of books and book series, this is the only series that I have read more than once, and every time I read it, I discover something new. The first time I read it I was probably in about 6th or 7th grade. I was hooked by the deep story and plot twists. The Second time was in eight grade, at this time the religious part of the book hit me and I was once again hooked. Finaly was in tenth grade, and I was really sucked into to theories on physics and even more deeper into the religious aspect. When I read it again I am sure I will once again become enthralled with the story and ideas, it is a book that fills you up so much while reading it, then when you finish it you feel like youv'e been cheated, robbed, of a beautiful thing that is once again over. To say I recomend this book is an understatement, I think it should be required reading, to the point that my teachers friends who haven't read it I badger repeatedly until they do read it. In a sentence, read it, love it, learn from it, and think about it.
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