Book Blog: Silverwing
Silverwing is a book about a runt bat in a large colony that is very curious about his surroundings. His name is Shade and he is a troublesome little bat that is filled with energy. All his life he had wanted to see the sun, so one day he decides to try and see it. When he tries to see the sun he accidentally aggravates some owls, and by doing this accidentally causes a war between the owls and the silverwings. This results in the owls destroying there colonies home and forcing the silverwings to leave to their winter home. Because he is a runt, he has a little more trouble flying then the others. As they’re flying south a massive storm hits and he gets lost. While he is lost he meets a beautiful bat named Marina. She had been banned from her colony because she had a band on one of her wings. The story is about the struggles that Shade goes through and the courage he has to save his whole colony from complete extinction.
This book is about the standing up for yourself and others and how no matter who you are or what your size is, if you have courage, you can do anything. In the book things come up like when Shade needs to use his courage to protect him and others he cares for. I think this pertains to adolescents in general because we have to stand up for others and ourselves on a daily basis.
This book, like the Kite Runner, is about courage and standing up for yourself and people you love, except in class Amir does the opposite of that and relies on Hassan to take the fall for his actions where as Shade has the courage to at least try to stop other, bigger bats and owls from destroying his colony.
Personally, I thought this book was amazingly written and would definitely recommend other people to read it. I cannot think of something that would have improved this book.
One rhetorical device used in this story is Pathetic Fallacy. When he is unsure of the future and himself, and is feeling bad about what he had done that forced his colony to travel south (attempt to see the sun) there is a massive storm and he gets lost. Another rhetorical device is doubles. The owls and Vampire bats are one example of doubles. Both of them are threatening to Shade and want to wipe out Shade’s entire colony.
So all in all I think this was a good book and will definitely be reading the res of the series.
