Play Book Tag discussion

An excellent dark story set in Victorian London.

Sixteen years old Sally Lockhart is orphaned when her merchant father’s ship goes down at sea. But when she receives a mysterious note and starts to ask questions, she finds herself in terrible danger. Fortunately Sally has a number of unusual and useful skills up her sleeve, and she acquires some delightful and loyal friends along the way.

Philip Pullman is such a good storyteller. This has many of the tropes of a children’s adventure story - a cursed jewel, an orphaned child, a cheeky street lad, an exaggerated villain, a mysterious past, pirates and general skullduggery. But under his pen they become something different, genuinely creepy and slightly unpredictable. Children of a brave disposition could read it and enjoy it and there’s certainly nothing inappropriate (though there is violence in it). But he never seems to pitch his writing specifically at children. His books are for everyone. So glad I saw this on a used book stand at a street fair late in October! A great $2 investment!

Another example of mislabelling because there are no steampunk elements to this - and not even any fantasy elements, unlike the Dark Materials books.

Team: Sassy Sisters. Spelling for P. Tagged x 21

Kate, this sounds like a great find! I suppose some people blindly tagged all the author’s books steampunk.

What do you think of his Book of Dust series?

I'm glad you liked this one too.

And I have to agree, there were no actual steampunk elements to this story.