Kenneth Oppel
Silverwing, Airborn, The Nest — middle-grade and YA fantasy with imaginative range and serious craft.
Kenneth Oppel's Silverwing trilogy follows bat protagonists in a richly worked animal-fantasy world; his Airborn trilogy runs steampunk-flavored sky-pirate adventure; The Nest is dark middle-grade with horror sensibility. His Frankenstein-reimagining novels (This Dark Endeavor and Such Wicked Intent) extend the range. The prose is precise and the imaginative range across his catalogue is unusual — Oppel takes each project on its own terms.
For middle-grade and YA readers depending on the book. Content varies by project: Silverwing and Airborn stay middle-grade-appropriate, The Nest and the Frankenstein novels handle darker material at older-YA register. The reading experience is the pleasure of middle-grade and YA fantasy from a writer who reinvents his project consistently. Pick this shelf when you want middle-grade and YA fantasy with serious craft, imaginative range across animal fantasy and steampunk and gothic horror, and a writer worth reading widely.
- Range across animal fantasy and steampunk
- Middle-grade and YA with serious craft
- Each project on its own terms
- Gothic-horror instincts when called for
