I haven’t seen “The Golden Compass” as a movie, and I’m reluctant to do so. “The Golden Compass” is an excellent book. As such, it’s nearly guarenteed to make for a bad movie. Rarely can someone adapt a book into as compelling of a movie as it was a pure story (“Memoirs of a Geisha” is a great example of that, great book, blah movie).If you’ve been living on another planet and have never heard of “The Golden Compass”, it’s a classic fairy tale-esque story (think Disney or “Oliver Twist”) set in a world that’s like our own and yet significantly different enough to be considered fantasy. At it’s heart is a girl named Lyra, an orphan (as all classic fairy tale heroines and heroes must be) who’s plucky, courageous and smart. The villain is a group called The Magisterium which seems to be a thinly veiled reference to the Catholic Church (the author of “The Golden Compass”, Phillip Pullman, is an outspoken athiest). Children start disappearing, perhaps kidnapped by the Magisterium, and when Lyra’s best friend is taken, she heads off on a rescue mission.

Complicating the story is the fact that in this fantastical world, all people have a “spirit half” called daemons (don’t ask me how to pronounce it). Daemons take on an animal form yet they converse with their human counterparts and can interact with other daemons. This sparks imagination in the reader to wonder, “What would my animal half be?” (it’s easy to take this as a sort of Native American spirit animal idea for those of us who have no real idea what that means but find it to be a romantic notion).

While the anti-religion element has been much criticized by some evangelical churches, I think it’s folly to denounce the book and/or movie. In my opinion “The Golden Compass” is a great book that most kids (over the age of 11 or so) won’t be able to put down. As an adult reader, it took me a little bit to get used to. The anabaric lights, the daemons, the armored bears were all a bit hard for me to take in at first, but as I kept going, I quickly fell in love with this world and had to read all 3 books in the series.

Speaking of, I can’t recommend “The Subtle Knife” or “The Amber Spyglass” (the other two books in the Dark Materials series) as highly as “The Golden Compass”. You’ll probably want to read all 3 after you’ve read “The Golden Compass” but they get progressively weirder. By the third book, I was sincerely wondering where Pullman was going. While I know many Christians who were horrified at the series, especially the third book, I found it to be too “out there” to take as a serious threat to my faith. Pullman obviously has disdain for the Catholic Church and he has a weird imagination, but I didn’t really find any specific accusations (on the level of “The DaVinci Code”, for example) to be concerned about. Still, for any parent whose children want to read this series, I would suggest reading it with them. If nothing else, you’ll have a lot to talk about.