Dusk is the central character in Mr. Oppel's newest book, 'Darkwing', the second in a trilogy published by Harper Collins Canada and the theme of his hour-long talk to the junior grades at Alexander Graham Bell Public School. The third book, 'Starclimber', will be released in September.

The children sit silently, in rapt attention, throughout the whole hour and ask Mr. Oppel well-informed questions about his characters and how he became a writer.

Winner of the 2004 Governor-General's award for children's literature, he's been writing for a long time and is well-known to children in Grades 4 to 8, the age range his fantasy books are aimed at. First published in 1985 at age 17, Mr. Oppel has had 24 books published on subjects as diverse as a boy who has a real-life adventure inside a video game to his current theme of prehistoric creatures who have the moxy to take the next step in the evolution of their species.

He told the group his big break came at 15 when he wrote Colin's Fantastic Video Adventure and a relative showed it to renowned British children's author Roald Dahl. Mr. Dahl liked the script enough to give it to his publisher, Puffin Books, and two years later Mr. Oppel became a published author.

"I first started writing in kindergarten. I wrote this poem about a crab, my teacher held it up and forced the class to sing it. So, like most writers who get a bit of attention, I thought 'sequel' and wrote a poem about a mouse," joked Mr. Oppel, as he shared his journey as a writer and described the contents of 'Darkwing'.

The prequel to 'Silverwing', the story is about bats and takes place 65 million years ago. Dusk is a young bat who lives with his parents and sister Silk in a sequoia tree. When a flying dinosaur crashes into Dusk's tree house, it makes him realize he wants to fly. He eventually does, and changes the evolutionary destiny of all bats. Simultaneously, a cat-like creature in the book decides he wants to graduate from herbivore to carnivore status, which impacts the bat population, too.

Children's questions ranged from 'how long does it take you to write a book?' - one-and-a-half years is the answer -- to 'where do you get the characters' names from?' Mr. Oppel said many of the names come from their Latin origins.

He advised budding writers not to be discouraged if they start writing something and don't finish it.

"Not everything works, so move on to something that does," he said.