sadder and more real than the death of Bambi's mom

I've finally gotten around to reading The Golden Compass with my boys, who are now 9 and 12, and am amazed by the poignancy of so much it -- especially, of course, the parts concerning the daemons. Those, for all my fellow late-comers, are the usually warm and furry creatures that live with humans in the mysterious world Philip Pullman has created: separate but somehow united so as always to give solace and companionship. We have just reached the point where Lyra (stop reading now if it would ruin the suspense) abruptly encounters a boy who has been "severed" from his daemon, and is as horrified and repulsed, Pullman writes, as if she'd seen his insides spilled out. This boy is so utterly alone and bereft and incomplete -- and reading this brought home in an entirely new way to me how lonely it is to be human. We haven't yet finished this first book of the series, but I like it so much more than Harry Potter....Reading aloud has been one of the great joys of motherhood. Before this, we actually finished Great Expectations and, on a three-night binge during the last rainy season when we lost electricity, Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. Huckleberry Fin, before that, was one of my favorites, and I'm wondering if anyone reading this blog has other suggestions, now that the summer is approaching?