Customer Reviews

Darkwing

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book can either be seen as a first book in a new series or as the 4th in an old series, written as a prequel. If it is a prequel it might be a record-breaker for time span. For Darkwing is a book set 65 million years ago. It is the story of a bat named Dusk, who does not know that he is a bat. He was born of a species named chriopter, and son of the Colony's leader Icaron. However Dusk is different - his sails(wings) are furless, his coloring is darker, and he is stronger in the shoulders and chest than other chriopters.

The story is set in the animal world in a time when the dinosaurs were in the process of dying off, and most other species were becoming overpopulated. Thus, nature, in an attempt to balance the ecosystem, was allowing to emerge, new breads of predators.

Oppel writes amazing books, as is evident by his numerous awards and nominations. His accolades include over a million copies of the Silverwing trilogy, The Governor General's Award, a Michael L. Printz Honor book, and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award and many others. He has accumulated book awards both at home in Canada and across the pond in the UK.

In Oppel's writings, he crafts his words and draws you into the world in ways you have never seen or imagined. Silverwing, written from a bat's perspective, is written without using any color - all the descriptions are in black, white, silvers and grays, as seen from the bat's perspective. In the same way, this book told from multiple first person perspectives, helps you see a prehistoric world from the animal's eye, whether it is the bat or Miacas.

In this book we follow Dusk and his colony as they try to find a new home in the world, after being driven from their family tree by Carnassial, who was driven from his pride for becoming a carnivore and is the leader of a smaller pride. Both Dusk and Carnassial must come to realize that the world is not as it was, and is changing fast. They must each come to grips with their differences, and help their families find their new place in the world.

The story is very well written, and will compel you to keep reading. As you turn the pages quicker and quicker, you will realize that as things in the world that long ago were racing towards change, you also will find yourself racing for the end of the book.

This book can either be seen as a prequel to the Silverwing trilogy, or as this reviewer hopes, the first in a new series about the bats from long ago. Either way Darkwing is a book to be enjoyed again and again.

(First Published in Imprint as 'Imprint's Reading' 2007-09-14)Silverwing

For those of you that don't know, Kenneth Oppel writes childrens books, including a popular collection about bats including Silverwing. Darkwing is meant to serve as both a standalone book and a prequel to Silverwing, and takes place 65 million years ago as the dinosaurs died out and all sorts of evolutionary wonders were happening, not the least of which was the evolution of the bat from a (relatively made up) similar creature called a chiropter that stars in this book.

The story is relatively simple...Dusk is a chiropter that has odd qualities that make him different from the rest of his clan. Despite that, his father, as leader, keeps Dusk safe and accepted within their community. One night though, the chiropters clan is attacked and they must seek a new home. Many perils face the giant chiropter tribe as they search high and low throughout their homelands for a new place to live, facing the challenges of new predators, unfamiliar territories, and the fact their isolation on their island home has sheltered them from the realities of the evolutionary world...plus Dusk still doesn't fit in with his group, even though his oddness benefits his clan time and time again.

At first I found the book a bit slow...and quite confusing, especially when trying to figure out what a Chiropter is (an explanation occurs at the end of the book, not the beginning). Well the best way to describe it is the predecessor to a bat...they can only glide, not fly for example. Many of the other creatures the bat colony comes across are similarly confusingly named with all sorts of bizarre titles. However, about a third of the way through I actually got quite into the story. Even though it's a kids book and some things were quite predictable, much of the book was quite UNpredictable. It almost played out like a very dramatic, at times gory, at times laughable (there are two scenes where plants are used in a hallucinogenic sense...?) version of a Pixar film about fitting in and finding your way home.

Overall I really enjoyed myself reading this book. It wasn't challenging once you got past the first part, and just provided a nice easy read! I'm sure lots of kids will be lapping this up, and rightfully so.

" They've accepted me." These are the words of a young dinosaur like bat. Who shows he hates being different but does not want to be anyother way. This young bat is Dusk and after reading this whole book it just goes to show you that being a Chiropters is not at easy as you would think but then again their life can be a little like ours.

All he ever wants is to be accepted by his kin named the Chiropters. Unlike most Chiropters Dusk has special skills that one day saves the lifes of many. However being different can be a bad thing when your a Chiropters that have been different in the past are ignored, shunned, killed, even sometimes left by their own family to die. Dusk is just lucky he is the leaders son or whos knows what would happen. Although Dusk has a huge family the main characters from his family you will hear about are his mom and dad, his sister Sylph, and his older brother Auster.

I felt this was a book many people can enjoy. One of the reasons for this is well it fits with a lot of different themes. For example there is killing making it horror. Then theres the always left out Dusk making it sad. Then as a last example there are twistand turns around every corner. The passage I like the best is the one stated before "They've accepted me." this just shows that after all the hard work and punishment he had to go through he was still able to reach his goal.

This was such an easy read and really kept you wanting to go to the next page. I checked this out at my school's library and I only didn't like the ending because it makes you want more. It is really a cute book, I actually got extremely sad and happy throughout the whole book. (: I recommend this book 100%!

My nine-year-old son recently read Darkwing, an older book by Kenneth Oppel, and has been after me to read it myself because he thought I'd enjoy it and because he wanted to share the experience and talk about it. I'm glad he kept on me because it was one of the best YA reads I've done this past year. My son clearly though so as well since he had me read it aloud to him (including a two-hour straight stretch) from the halfway point on even though he'd just read it a few weeks earlier. That's perhaps the best recommendation I can give.

Before Darkwing Oppel had already penned a contemporary fantasy with bats as characters: Sunwing, Silverwing, and Firewing. One could call Darkwing a "prequel" I suppose, but it's got to be the earliest prequel I've ever seen as it's set way back in the Paleocene epoch, just as the dinosaurs are dying out. It was a great choice.

The main character is Dusk, a relatively young member of a colony of small mammalian tree-glider called chiropters living on a small island connected at low tide to the mainland by a sandbar. Dusk is something different than a chiropter though: his "sails" are hairless and in usage act more like wings, and he also can see at night using echoes. His colony shuns him as a freak, save for his loyal sister, his loving mother, and his stern father, who is also the colony's leader. At first Dusk hides his differences as much as possible, then he is forbidden to use his new gifts and the early part of the story deals with his attempts to find his place in his world.

Meanwhile, other changes are rocking the world. As mentioned, the dinosaurs are dying off and along with disease and changing climate, one of the reasons given is the Pact--an agreement made by many of the beasts to work together to break (or eat) all the saurian eggs they could seek out. With the dinosaurs gone, the other beasts' populations are quickly growing and territory and food are becoming issues. Among the felids--a kind of small cat-like weasel--one named Carnassial has like Dusk evolved; he has become a meat-eater. When Carnassial splits off with his own pack, this event, along with the growing tensions over food and space, starts to weaken the alliance among the beasts.

Soon, Dusk and his colony are fighting for the lives: against birds grown suddenly aggressive, against Carnassial and his pack, and against new threats never seen before. Forced to leave their island refuge, the colony must make a journey to a new home where they can find safety again. And Dusk must figure out where he belongs.

The setting is absolutely fascinating as drawn. The creatures are all interesting in their own right but especially so as nearly all are precursors of some well-known animal today, so part of the fun is in cataloging the differences between these early versions and our modern ones. Oppel does an excellent job as well in depicting a world in turmoil, one where all the old rules no longer apply and new ones must be forged.

The plot is filled with suspense throughout as Dusk and his colony face danger after danger. Sometimes the danger is short, dramatic and action-packed, such as an attack by carnivores on their tree home. Sometimes it is drawn out in terrifyingly slow fashion, as when they must try and make their crossing to the mainland (remember chiropters cannot fly; they can only glide short distances and then must find another height to launch themselves from). Sometimes the danger is obvious; sometimes it is hidden. But it is always present. And it is real--Oppel doesn't shy away from death in this book; characters die and their deaths are painful, both physically for them and emotionally for the reader. There is also real depth to this plot, as the journey unfolds complexities of morality and ethics, challenging the characters and the reader with difficult situations and refusing to offer up easy or blithe answers.

But by far the strongest aspect of the book, which is saying something since the setting and plot are so good, is the characterization. Dusk is simply a wonderful creation: caught in a literal in-between world of youth and adulthood and chiropter and bat. It's a great dual construction. You never forget he is a bat (true of all the animal characters btw)--he revels in the crunch of insects for instance--but he feels like a fully realized human character in most of his fears and hopes. You feel his pain at being shunned, at losing "people" important to him, his exhilaration at flight coupled with shame and dismay at how it makes him different, and so on. His coming of age is filled with all the pain and stutter steps backwards and forwards and joys and heights and depths of a real person; it never makes a false move.

The other characters are equally strong. His father could have been the stereotypical stern father--and he is stern--but he has many layers to him, both good and bad, some surprising. His sister too is a delight in her richness of development, always loyal to Dusk even while she disagrees with him (and her father) on most issues. Carnassial could have been a simplistic villain, but Oppel, as he does with Dusk, makes him come alive in three-dimensions. One of the sharpest pangs I had in the book involved Carnassial--that's a skillful move by an author and a sign of success. Smaller side characters, no matter how briefly we meet them, are treated with the same degree of craftsmanship. Oppel takes no lazy shortcuts here.
I find myself wanting to go on here, to detail other characters, specific plot points, and I could go on and on and on, so I won't. Suffice to say that had this been a 2011 book, Darkwing would have shot immediately to the top of my Best of the Year YA list and would as well be in Best of the Year general list, which is not easy for a YA book to break into. I'll offer up just one more sign of how good this was. The copy my son and I read was a library book which, because he had read it first and it took me a while to get to, we had maxed out our renewals. After we finished it (remember, his second time around) and we got ready to return it, he wanted to know if we could return it on whichever library card we'd maxed it out on but check it out immediately with one of our other family cards. I told him I'd just buy it. And I did.

There are very, very few books that I would reread immediately after turning the last page. This is one of them.

Considerably larger than the three books in the Silverwing saga, Darkwing should be treated as being completely separated from these books. It's a prequel... by about sixty-five million years.

Told from the perspective of two characters, Dusk (a chiropter) and Carnassial (a felid), Darkwing delves into the forbidden realm of evolution. Dusk and Carnassial, though enemies, have something in common. They're different. Chiropters glide through the air on sails; they only go down, not up. Felids are peaceful, insect-eating ground-dwellers, who would never harm another creature.

But Dusk can fly.

Carnassial has an insatiable hunger for flesh.

Since the day Dusk was pushed out of the tree by his father, he has yearned to flap. It is a secret he's kept for most of his life, but once out, it's a gift that plunges him and his colony into strife, and a struggling, heart-wrenching journey from their island.

Carnassial has been expelled by his fellow felids, who find his new taste for blood to be a disgrace to other beasts. But he can't help it. Carnassial, and several others, have been born with strong teeth that sheer meat (called carnassials), and their only desire is to put them to good use.

Dusk and this fiendish pre-feline travel, unknowingly, together, yearning to find a place where they can live; but, most importantly, belong.

The story is full of action, right from the beginning.

Unlike Oppel's previous three books, the characters in Darkwing are more developed, deeper. Though not entirely unique (it's pretty easy to picture certain characters taking on faces from the Silverwing saga), they are definitely just as loveable, if not more fun to read. The cast is extensive, with a wide range of creatures that are not likely to disappoint.

Having evolved along with Dusk and Carnassial, it's fairly easy to see where Oppel has developed his style in writing since Silverwing. His "new" sense of writing is possibly one thing that makes Darkwing so much more enjoyable than the previous three books. He doesn't skimp, he doesn't hold back, it appears that all of Oppel's creative juices have been sewn right into the pages.

The full-page illustrations make excellent accents. The detail and emotion etched into the drawings are just as wonderful as the pictures painted with Oppel's words.

Though the story is easy to predict, that doesn't make the plot itself any less unique. When was the last time you read a book from the perspective of a sixty-five million year old bat?

"Darkwing" is set 65 million years ago, and people might know this age as the time of the dinosaurs. In this, a chiropter (pre-bats) named Dusk is our main protagonist. He is often teased because of his differences. His kind do not fly; they glide, which means they can only go down and must climb their way up.
Dusk learns about saurians, the creatures that ruled the earth before being killed by what was thought to be a rock falling from the sky. In this thrilling prequel to the Silverwing series, "Darkwing" shows strong personification and makes us feel as though these characters are real people with real life problems.

Personally I think this book was awesome. Instead of showing a natural perspective to it you introduced a natural and outsider look. You don't get all the emotions from sylph but get the general idea. I can't wait for the next one. Well Done Kenneth Oppel.

I have to say this was a great read and I recommend it to 5 -7th graders it is a little complicated that's why. It is another great sequel to the book silverwing. I don't understand how it sequels to shade and marina but it was a nice book anyway. There were plenty of details. and I liked the way he described bats human like. Its about a bat who doesn't glide. He flaps and he's shameful. but in the end flapping saves them all

Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel is a prehistoric fiction book. It is about a colony of chiropters and the extinction of the feared saurians. Dusk a chiropter who has the ability to fly unlike the other bat like creatures who can only glide.