I couldn’t very well write about Steve Augarde as author / illustrator and leave out Philip Pullman, who has written some of my favourite books: the “His Dark Materials” series.
This is the best kind of book: an excellent gripping story that entertains and delights, but also touches on those issues close to my heart. The beautiful complexity of the issues he touches upon, of authority entangled by love, freedom and pain, puberty and purity.
I did not think very much of the film – it was entertaining but ultimately failed utterly to convey any of the above. Here are some interviews with Philip Pullman, partly about the Golden Compass film, but about all kinds of other interesting issues. Beware of spoilers if you have not ready the books yet…
Apparently he is about to release another part of this series – “Once Upon a Time in the North”.
Here are some links to examples of the art he created for the chapter headings of his books:
They include comments by him on each drawing. The rest of the site is very interesting also.
Also, Marijke sent me this link to a page about him which contains his own list of books he recommends near the bottom of the page.
Masha du Toit 
Jun 02, 2008 @ 19:17:30
Oh, these are my favorites too. They do get a bit too dark for children’s book, but I literally couldn’t put them down. Too bad he hasn’t written anything big since the Dark Materials…
Jun 02, 2008 @ 20:55:48
Yes, I agree they are not really children’s books! I wonder how on earth they are going to handle the other books when the time comes to make the films…
Jan 04, 2010 @ 04:10:33
Nice blog! I found it looking for information on “Northern Lights,” of my favorite children’s books. Can you tell me whether the illustrations you posted above are covers of a specific edition, or interior illustrations? Thanks!
Jan 04, 2010 @ 09:14:08
Hi Lizzie These are covers – and I wish I owned these editions myself 🙂 Here is a link to one of them on Amazon.com, to give you an idea: http://www.amazon.com/Northern-Lights-His-Dark-Materials/dp/1407102540/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262589073&sr=1-11
The details for the “Northern Lights edition” are –
*Publisher:Scholastic; Collector’s Ed edition (May 7, 2007)
*ISBN-10:1407102540
🙂
Nov 18, 2010 @ 07:34:33
I adored these books as a child and reading them again as an adult found them still amazing!