Inkling

Kenneth Oppel is a Canadian author who is famous for writing middle grade and young adult fiction. Oppel’s work has won multiple awards, including The Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature, The Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award, and the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award. Oppel wrote his first novel, Colin’s Fantastic Video Adventure, when he was only 14 years old, and a major theme of his work is his celebration of the artistic abilities of young people; this is also a unifying idea in Inkling. 

Oppel prefers writing children’s literature because, as he states, “No book you read as an adult - no matter how excellent - will ever have the same effect on you as the books you first loved as a child” (“Hans Christian Andersen Award Dossier”). Oppel references this nostalgic sentiment in Inkling whenever the characters strongly relate to certain books. Specifically, before her death, Olivia finds comfort in reading a battered copy of The Secret Garden while she is in the hospital. Likewise, most of the books that Inkling reads are classic children’s books like Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and Roald Dahl’s The BFG. Following in the footsteps of such literary heroes, Oppel makes it a point to support his fantastical storylines with “a foundation of realism” (Oppel, Kenneth.