WHITBREAD CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (Scholastic £6.99)
The third and concluding volume of Pullman’s highly-acclaimed and best-selling His Dark Materials trilogy, which began with Northern Lights and continued with The Subtle Knife, takes many of its themes from the story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man. The Amber Spyglass moves between the universes of the previous books and to new universes and worlds not yet visited in the first two volumes.
Philip Pullman was born in Norwich in 1946 and spent the early part of his life travelling the world because his father was in the RAF. He subsequently returned to North Wales aged 11, read English at Oxford when he left school and was a teacher for many years before leaving to write full-time. He still lives in Oxford with his wife Jude where, famously, he writes his award-winning books in a shed at the bottom of his garden.
The judges: “Compelling, thrilling, exceptional: The Amber Spyglass explores every dimension of human existence: fantasy, love, death, betrayal and redemption. No ordinary person could write this.”

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