Lila wants to be a firework maker just like her father, but before she can even start she has to make a hazardous, life-threatening journey to the den of the evil Fire-Fiend, battling her way through strange lands and nightmarish scenarios with elephants and pirates and strange beasts a-plenty tempting her from her path. Philip Pullman has plucked a rare, exotic and totally bewitching idea from thin air and has turned it into the kind of magical adventure that all children dream of, crackling and sparkling with the same thrilling intensity as the fireworks in Lila's dreams. Lila herself is divine--the perfect blend of light-footed heroine and stubborn adventurer--and The Firework- Maker's Daughter, illustrated by Nick Harris, is a deserving winner of the Smarties Book Prize. A simply superb, gripping, action-packed adventure that will live long in the memory of anyone who enters Lila's world. --Susan Harrison
