Tag: children’s fiction

  • Dust and roses: Philip Pullman’s vision

    Dust and roses: Philip Pullman’s vision

    The rose field, published in October, completes Philip Pullman’s massive ‘Book of dust’ trilogy.  More than that, it completes the whole cycle of ‘Lyra’ novels that Pullman began thirty years ago with Northern lights.  It seems to me that it’s one of the greatest achievements in children’s literature in our time.  Though ‘children’s literature’ is…

  • Philip Pullman and the revival of fascism

    Philip Pullman and the revival of fascism

    One of the sweetest memories of reading books to our daughters when they were young was narrating Philip Pullman’s ‘His dark materials trilogy’ to E. in the 1990s, not long after the books were published.  One of them, Northern lights, carries a message to E. from the author on its title page.  Sometimes I’d continue…