I read the trilogy a couple years ago and had a similarly enraptured response - particularly to the first book. I like children's books that honor the old fairytale tradition of having a very dark side, and Pullman delivers that (without the campiness of the wonderful Lemony Snicket). The most fun part of the books for me was figuring out the terminology and deducing how the history of Lyra's world evolved so that people say "Skraeling" instead of "Indian," "chocolatl" instead of "chocolate," etc. Nifty stuff.