La tour des anges, by Philip Pullman

Obviously, what follows Nothern Lights in my readings is its sequel, The Subtle Knife. In this novel, we discover Will Parry, a 12-year-old boy who lives in our world. He takes care of his mentally-ill mother and runs away from strange men from the secret services who seek information about Will's mysteriously disappeared father. As he is fleeing, he discovers a passageway, or rather an opening in the space that leads to a new world. In Cittagaze, gangs of children live together, without any adults because of the Spectres, bad creatures who attack matured people only (the dementors in Harry Potter, you know? Pretty much the same thing). Lyra and Will teams up and travel to Will's world in order to get more information about the Dust. Lyra is told by the Dust that her new mission is to help Will find his father. Meanwhile, we can follow the actions of some other characters such as Lee Scoresby and Serafina Pekkala and we hear a little more about the famous apparently-not-dead explorer Stanislas Grumman. Plus, Will became the bearer of the Subtle Knife, a powerful arm which can cut doors through the different worlds and can destroy anything. As the time goes by, Will gets to have an important role to play in the war Lord Asriel is launching against the Authority.

I think the very best thing about this sequel is the appearance of the character of Will. He is such a lovely boy. If I were 12 years old, I'd be madly in love with him. He is so young and has so much responsabilities. He is very caring and thoughful and courageous. I could go on like this for a couple of lines more, but that's not the point of my message. We can add new creatures that can be very frightful (the Spectres).

Then, the different worlds are very nice to discover. I think Pullman did a very amazing job in creating how they function and how you can go from one world to another using the Knife. I also like how he relates the sudden changes in their worlds that followed Lord Asriel's bridge to the climatic changes we observes in our world currently. We this sequel, we're also getting more into action and the war against the Church (or the Authority) becomes more real and imminent. Once again, we have some good philosophical content about morality and religious authority. We also get into Eve and the original sin. Should she have eaten the fruit or not? Should we have Knowledge or not?

Verdict: To buy. It's as good as its predecessor. A good reading for children as well as for adults. If you are very religious, maybe have a little talk about religion, reality and fiction with your children before letting them read the book.