Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman

I read this one on the train on the way to see Rick Riordan at Wellesley Booksmith. What a great day!

I was a little worried about this book because Lyra's Oxford was just so weird and read like a writing exercise that they decided to publish to make more money off of suckers like me. I needn't have worried. This is just a fantastic story about how Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison first meet. I loved having those characters back with me, and I loved the glimpse into Lyra's post-Spyglass life. I am probably missing an important and obvious connection, but who is the Tom that she writes to? Is that just an indication that she moved on after Will?

One of my old pet peeves did surface, though. The double-page excerpt from The Elements of Aerial Navigation interrupts a sentence. I actually had to flip the pages back and forth a few times because I thought I had mistakenly skipped a page. With all that we can do with book design, why can't we plan these asides so that they don't disrupt the flow of reading?

I haven't tried out the game yet. I'm torn between wanting to see it and wanting to keep my book in pristine condition. Any thoughts?