The Subtle Knife

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Scholastic, 2000 - Juvenile Fiction - 341 pages
The world of Cittagazze is an unsettling place: silent, empty streets, the threat of horrible death from the soul-eating Spectres from which only children are safe. Into this world comes Will, a 12 year old boy who has just killed a man. On the run, he meets a strange young girl called Lyra. Their paths take them to the mysterious Torre degli Angeli, where they must somehow acquire Cittagazze's most important secret: an object which people from many worlds would kill to possess. But Will has his own task as well: he must find the father he has never known. Could it be that this quest, and Lyra's, are a part of the same larger one? The Subtle Knife is part 2 of the trilogy His Dark Materials.

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About the author (2000)

Philip Pullman was born in Norwich on October 19, 1946. He graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English. He taught at various Oxford middle schools and at Westminster College for eight years. He is the author of many acclaimed novels, plays, and picture books for readers of all ages. His first book, Count Karlstein, was published in 1982. His other books include: The Firework-Maker's Daughter; I Was a Rat!; Clockwork or All Wound Up; and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. He is also the author of the Sally Lockhart series and the His Dark Materials Trilogy. He is the author of The Book of Dust, volume 1. He has received numerous awards including the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Fiction Award for Northern Lights (The Golden Compass), the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for The Amber Spyglass, the Eleanor Farjeon Award for children's literature in 2002, and the Astrid Lindgren Award in 2005.

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