Pullman pulls it off

Lyra's Oxford by Philip Pullman, with engravings by John Lawrence 49pp, David Fickling, £9.99

This captivating, slight, somewhat overpriced stocking-filler of a book has one outstanding merit for Philip Pullman's legion of readers. It answers, encouragingly, the question left hanging by the His Dark Materials trilogy. Having created, then parted, Lyra and Will - two of the most enticing heroes in children's or any literature - what more can Pullman do with them?

A future together for the children and their developing love seemed to be closed in the last volume of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. It was apparently debarred by the terms of the voluntary self-sacrifice needed to save their alternative Oxfords, and the multiple worlds around them. The ending brought thousands of readers agedLewis would have dared in the Narnia books.

He has promised further stories about aspects of the trilogy's characters. On paper, this sounds a dubious enterprise. Who wants to know more about the separate lives of Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, before the great dramas began? Lyra's Oxford shows it to be viable. The 49-page story is cut from the living wood of the author's imaginative world and comes instantly to life in its own right.

It opens with Lyra, two years older than in the trilogy, on the roof of Jordan College with Pantalaimon. She is now at school, but she bunks off that as she once did her college duties. Flying towards them, they see a thrush-type creature which is being attacked by other birds. It's a