Golden Compass for an 8th b-day present?

[Shonahsmom]

DD's b-day is in less than three weeks. I'm really interested in getting this series as a present for and reading it with dd. She is a pretty advanced reader. She's read all seven HP books. Is there anything in GC that would prevent you from reading them to an 8 year old kid that had no problems with the content in the HP series?

TIA!

[Verity]

Just FWIW, my dd (who turns 10 in a couple of weeks), who reads avidly and a good bit above her actual grade level (4th), tried reading it and found it boring.

OTOH, my ds (now 13) read all three books. He said The Golden Compass was hard to get into.

[madskye]

If you read the thread about the church protests on the book, it will give you a pretty good and balanced idea of what THE GOLDEN COMPASS is about.

I personally really liked it, thought it was a great, thoughtprovoking adventure story. It has some sophisticated themes and would be a great book for discussion. I'd put it on par with A WRINKLE IN TIME for the level of reading--neither book is as long as the HP books, but the content is more mature. (In my opinion!)