Bridge to Bat City

Product Information

Cline’s Ready Player One is a dystopian, sci-fi novel about Wade Watts, a teenager in the year 2044. But with people afraid of the bats and determined to get rid of them, it’ll take a whole lot of courage to prove that this is where the bats—and Opal—belong.

Cline is otherwise best known for penning the 2015 sci-fi novel Armada, which follows another teenage gamer who discovers that the alien-invasion-themed game he’s been playing is actually a simulator to prepare humanity for a real-world invasion.His books have been published in over fifty countries and have spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Ernie lives in Austin, Texas, with his family, a time-traveling DeLorean, and a large collection of classic video games. The kids book is described as a “mostly true tall tale” about a recently orphaned young girl named Opal B Flats who forms an unexpected friendship with a music-loving colony of bats and helps them find a new home against all odds. Cline followed up his debut novel with 2015's Armada, and a sequel, Ready Player Two, released in 2020.

Both Armada and Ready Player Two have been optioned for film adaptations ( in Armada's case, three years before it was even published). To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Bridge to Bat City' follows Steven Spielberg adapting Cline’s 2011 dystopian, sci-fi novel about a teen's quest to win control over a virtual universe. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. After losing her mother, 13-year-old Opal moves in with her uncle Roscoe on the family farm, and it’s there that she befriends a group of orphaned bats.

But with people afraid of the bats and determined to get rid of them, it'll take a whole lot of courage to prove that this is where the bats--and Opal--belong. Bridge to Bat City is the type of book I loved to read as a child; it’s a book about being an outsider—a weirdo, even! The book appears to mark something of a departure for Cline from the work in the sci-fi realm for which he’s best known. There, Opal bonds with Unclue Roscoe over music and befriends a group of orphaned, music-loving bats. If Opal and the bats can fit in anywhere, it’s the nearby city of Austin, home to their favorite music and a host of wonderfully eccentric characters.

But just as the farm is starting to feel like home, the bats’ cave is destroyed by a big mining company that has its sights on the family’s land, as well. His book deal was brokered by manager and producing partner Dan Farah and literary agent Yfat Reiss Gendell. But with people afraid of the bats and determined to get rid of them, it’ll take a whole lot of courage to prove that this is where the bats — and Opal — belong. Ernest Cline, the best-selling novelist who saw his popular first published book, Ready Player One, adapted by Steven Spielberg into a tentpole movie, has unveiled his debut kids novel, Bridge to Bat City.

In Bridge to Bat City, inspired by stories he would tell his kids at bedtime, Ernie Cline has crafted an enchanting tale that weaves together fact and fiction set against the incredible backdrop of 1980s Austin, filled with a vibrant cast of characters, rich music history, activism and environmentalism, and bats!

This is a weird and wonderful “mostly true tall tale” about how a recently orphaned girl named Opal B Flats helped a family of displaced bats find a new home under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas. But just as the farm is starting to feel like home, the bats' cave is destroyed by a big mining company with its sights set on the farmland next.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This is an enchanting tale that weaves together fact and fiction set against the incredible backdrop of 1980s Austin, filled with a vibrant cast of characters, rich music history, activism and environmentalism, and bats! Said Little, Brown Books’ Editor-in-Chief Alvina Ling, “In Bridge to Bat City, inspired by stories he would tell his kids at bedtime, Ernie Cline has crafted an enchanting tale that weaves together fact and fiction set against the incredible backdrop of 1980s Austin, filled with a vibrant cast of characters, rich music history, activism and environmentalism, and bats!