Awards
Pullman won both the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books[4] and the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for Northern Lights, an award which authors can only win once in their lifetime.[7] Six books have won both awards in 45 years through 2011.[a]
In the US, The Golden Compass was named Booklist Editors Choice – Top of the List, Publishers Weekly Book of the Year, a Horn Book Fanfare Honor Book, and a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book in 1996.[8]
Religion
Some critics have asserted that the trilogy and the movie portray organised churches and religion negatively,[9][10] while others – notably Dr Rowan Williams, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury – have argued that Pullman's works should be included in religious-education courses.[11] Journalist Peter Hitchens views the series His Dark Materials as a direct rebuttal of The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.[12] Literary critic Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College in Illinois suggested that Pullman had recast the Narnia series, replacing a theist world-view with a Rousseauist one.[13]
