The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The story focuses on Lyra, a mischevious eleven year old girl who grew up in Jordan College of Oxford university. Not our Oxford, but Oxford in a world parallel to ours. In the parallel world all humans have an extention of themselves, called a daemon, which takes the form of an animal. Each human's daemon is essentially their soul. Lyra was raised by the scholars and servants of Jordan College; spending her childhood wandering around the grounds of Oxford with children and her friend Roger the kitchen boy. After saving her uncle, Lord Asriel, from a poisoning attempt, however, her life begins to change. Soon after her friend Roger is kidnapped by a group known as the gobblers, who take children supposedly do some sort of experiment. She also recieves a strange compass like object known as the alethiometer, which is somehow used to find the truth. In the ensuing chain of events she sets off to the far north with a group of gypsies to rescue Roger and the other children, as well as Lord Asriel who was being held prisoner by armored bears.