Darkwing

September 1, 2007
Gr 5-8-The story of "Darkwing" is set 65 million years ago, during the early Paleocene era just years after the enormous C-T dieback event. Dusk and his family are chiropters, small arboreal mammals that glide and feed on insects. Changes are coming to their world, and not the least of them are Dusk's abilities of flight and echolocation. Although his family stands by him, most of the colony is very uncomfortable with his flying, fearing reprisal from the birds that live above them in the trees. All concerns about Dusk's oddities or their avian neighbors are swept aside when an outcast prowl of felids, led by the bloodthirsty Carnassial, attack the colony and Dusk's special abilities help to guide his fellows and keep them safe. During their search for a new home, his quick wits are all that stand between the colony and disaster. In their quest, the chiropters encounter deadly predators, from saurian holdouts to shrewlike soricids with poisonous saliva. Betrayals from both within the colony and without add to the excitement in this adventure. Readers will feel for Dusk as he decides repeatedly not to abandon his colony, despite their treatment of him. In "Darkwing", Oppel offers a celebration of difference in addition to a wonderful imagining of a pivotal moment in evolution. An author's note highlights some of the actual fossil species that appear. One cautionary notethe descriptions of animals eating each other may be disturbing to sensitive readers."Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2007
In his Silverwing series Oppel spun a contemporary fantasy about the world of bats. In this ambitious new stand-alone fantasy, he turns the clock back 65 million years to imagine the world of the bats earliest ancestors, which he calls chiropters. These tree-dwelling creatures are flightless, using their wings (which they call sails) to glide through the air, from tree to tree. OnlyDusk, youngest son of the colonys leader, has made an evolutionary leap; not only can he fly, he can also see at night, using echo vision. Predictably, the othersregard him as a mutant to be shunnedall but his father, who wiselyconsiders his sons differences as gifts. Dusks real nemesis, however, is a beast (a felid) called Carnassial, who isthe first ofhiskind to be carnivorous and, like Dusk, is shunned byhis own. Clearly the world is poised on the brink of remarkable change, and the future belongs to these two. Oppel writes with keen insight and empathy about the condition of being other in the context of a richly plotted, fast-paced story thatthough sometimes too heavily anthropomorphizedis captivating reading from beginning to end.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2007
Natural selection bumps up against established social hierarchies in this bat prehistory (set sixty-five million years ago) that anticipates Oppel's Silverwing (rev. 11/97) and its companions. Newborn Dusk looks different from all the other chiropters in the colony: his hind legs are weak, and his chest is superdeveloped; his ears are exceptionally large, and his "sails" look just plain weird. Unlike the rest of the colony, climbing trees and gliding down from them is a struggle for him, but -- he can fly. This talent brings him no end of trouble, but it becomes more and more of an asset in a world where the saurians have been eradicated and the newly liberated mammals realize that predation is the way of the future. Oppel braids Dusk's narrative with that of Carnassial, a felid who has learned the forbidden pleasures of flesh (eating it, that is). Dusk's world may be vastly different from today's, but the social interactions are depressingly familiar: principles yield to the necessity of survival; those who deviate from the norm are cast out. Danger heaps upon danger as Dusk must lead his ever-diminishing chiropter colony to some semblance of refuge. There is little subtlety here, but so much outsized prehistoric action that readers will be happily swept along for the ride.

(Copyright 2007 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2008
Natural selection bumps up against social hierarchies in this bat prehistory that anticipates [cf2]Silverwing[cf1]. Dusk looks different from the other chiropters. Climbing trees is a struggle, but he can fly, which becomes an asset. Dusk's world is different from our own, but the social interactions are familiar. There's so much outsized prehistoric action, readers will be happily swept along for the ride.

(Copyright 2008 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)