Curious heroine
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LYRA Belacqua,the heroine of Philip Pullman's famous His Dark Materials trilogy(三部曲) ( 1996-2000 ) ,is a 12-year-old girl growing up in a college at Oxford University , in a place which may or may not be England .

She's a curious girl ,so she's interested to overhear her uncle Lord Asriel,speaking to the college master about his research .Lord Asriel is a scientist working on something called "dust" . The Magesterium government doesn't trust dust, like many scientifc things in this world . And the Magisterium does all it can to stop interest in it, particularly among children .

The girl is worried about the disappearance of her best friend, Roger Parslow . No one knows where he is , but , worryingly , many children have gone missing recently.However, when the charming and attractive Mrs Coulter arrives, Lyra is distracted .There is a chance for this curious girl to go on a scientifc adventure.She goes with the woman to the far north .

But Mrs Coulter is not what she seems , and neither is her "scence ". Mrs Coulter and her fellow "expenmenters" are doing experiment on children that they have kidnapped（诱拐）.Lyra escapes,as children in fantasies do . But her escape is not enough . Now she has a responsibility to do something about the evil she has witnessed , an evil she thinks has taken her friend Roger .Dark things lie ahead for Lyra .

As some of these details might suggests, these books are different from most fantasy novels .While, like other fantasy fiction, the books have young characters , amazing words and a fight between good and evil ,they are also more serious. In other works of fantasy ,even in moments of great danger ,the reader feels that somehow , things will turn out OK.The story is frightening , but not that frightening.Yet Pullman's books , by contrast , are full of uncertainty. So much can happen to curious boys and girls...