Book with bats in it!

[FeedMeTV]

It is highly unlikely anyone will be able to help with this but thank you in advance for reading!

I read a fiction book many moons ago which was centred on the lives of bats. I think the main bat character was called Shadow? That could be completely wrong. I remember very little about the story, there was an evil bat and our main bat had a fight with it etc etc. Probably a lady bat in there somewhere.

This was a young adults novel (I'd imagine) which I read about... ooo 12 years ago?

The only reason I want to know what it was is that I was talking about it to someone the other day and couldn't get much further than "I read a really good book about bats when I was little..." no plot, no author, no title. Very frustrating. Anyway if anyone happens to have heard of this book - it doesn't sound like it was exactly high-brow - I'd be greatful as I remember really liking it.

Cheers!

 

[HareBrain]

Silverwing by Kenneth Oppel has a main character called Shade, so I'm guessing that's the one.

Don't ask me how many sacrifices I had to make to the foul demon Googol to answer that.

 

[FeedMeTV]

That's amazing how did you do that?! Your search engine skills are far superior to mine, I bow to you!

Thank you very much indeed.

 

[HareBrain]

That's amazing how did you do that?!

Well, since you asked ...

The key turned out to be a 15-year-old fan of both Genghis Khan and "Religious Metal" called Tim Rick. Googling "bat named shadow" took me to his myspace page, which contains the information:

Im going to be an actor and a writer and stuff like that. I like all kinds of music and games, i like reading. Im funny and smart. Right now I'm writing a book called Dark Echo, its about a bat named shadow. I'm also trying to start a METAL band

etc

Bah, I thought. No use. But then I noticed that under "books" he lists the Silver Wing series, and on a hunch, I Googled that -- presto!

So be grateful that he could come up with no name more imaginative for his bat-hero than one that was a hair's breadth from the name of the bat-hero in one of his favourite books.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I was thinking it might be Stellaluna, which I haven't read but have seen many times at the bookstore.

But looking it up at amazon, it's for younger children than I thought and the plot doesn't sound the same. Still, if there are any bat fanciers drawn to this thread looking for more books with bats as main characters ... that's another one.

 

[FeedMeTV]

Truly marvellous, HareBrain.

And good luck to Tim Rick in his future career in "stuff like that".

 

[erinsbooks]

Interesting! I just read Darkwing by Oppel this past week, picked at random from the library bookshelf! It was actually quite good, and was set in prehistoric times. The book was centered around various species starting to evolve into their modern-day counterparts, and bats were the focus of the book. Usually I don't go for "talking animal" books, but I really enjoyed this one.