By Phillip Pullman
592 pages
Malcolm Polstead is a boy who works for his parents at their inn, The Trout. One day, a baby named Lyra Belacqua is placed in the Priory across the river from the inn, and Malcolm finds that the baby is of some importance. One day, a huge flood came, and Malcolm saved Lyra, as well as Alice, a girl who worked at The Trout in his canoe, the La Belle Sauvage, which had just been renovated by a man named Lord Asriel, who was Lyra’s father, because Malcolm had lent it to him. They went cascading down the flood. Will they survive?
This book was really good and was a cool backstory to His Dark Materials. I give it a 9 of 10 and recommend it to teens.