BBC: Philip Pullman has hit back at critics who accuse him of peddling “candy-coated atheism”, dismissing claims that the film promotes atheism and denigrates Christianity as “absolute rubbish”. “I am a story teller,” he said. ” If I wanted to send a message I would have written a sermon.” Read more.

Pullman also spoke to the CBC in response to an Ontario school board’s review of the book’s position on its elementary school library shelves, “If you want people to read a book, then make a fuss about it, make it controversial. Tell your children they are not to read this book under any circumstances. What is more likely to make them go to the shelf and take it down and read it from there?” Read more.