All that's golden doesn't glitter: New Line's fantasy film The Golden Compass is a watered-down version of the first book in author Philip Pullman's blatantly anti-Christian His Dark Materials trilogy.(CULTURE WAR)

"There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book," British author Philip Pullman once proclaimed. Good storytelling, Pullman believes, is largely the province of children's, not adult, fiction, since, with the latter, "stories are there on sufferance. Other things are felt to be more important: technique, style, literary knowingness.... The present-day would-be George Eliots take up their stories as if with a pair of tongs. They're embarrassed by them. If they could write novels without stories in them, they would. Sometimes they do."

Those of us who still treat children's literature, ...