Reading Age: 12-17

  1)  Lyra's Oxford

  2)  Once Upon a Time in the North

3)  Serpentine

Two years after the conclusion of The Amber Spyglass, Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon sit high on the roof of Jordan College, gazing down on the streets of Oxford. But their peace is shattered by a flock of enraged starlings, who seem intent on knocking another bird out of the sky – a bird that Lyra and Pan quickly realise is a witch’s daemon. The daemon carries worrying tidings of a terrible sickness spreading in the north, and claims that only Lyra can help him – but is he really friend, or foe?

When Lyra is studying at Oxford University, she comes across the story of Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnisson's first meeting, many years ago, along with much evidence of the adventure that brought them together.

She discovers that when a young Texan balloonist Lee came down to earth in the harbour of an Arctic town in the North, little did he realise that he is about to be caught in a war between the residents of the town and the huge arctic bears that also live there.

And when Lee meets one of these bears - Iorek - for the first time, they cement a friendship that will continue throughout their lives, as the tensions in the town threaten to erupt ...

Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon have left the events of His Dark Materials far behind.

In this snapshot of their forever-changed lives they return to the North to visit an old friend, where we will learn that things are not exactly as they seem . . .