Airborn

by Kenneth Oppel

Matt Cruse works aboard the beautiful skyship Aurora. It is a luxury passenger liner, with a captain who guides his crew well and a crew who knows their jobs. Matt is the cabin boy, and excels at what he does. His father worked on the Aurora before he died, so Matt carries on his father's work. One day while transporting passengers and cargo, the ship comes across a balloon in distress. There seems to be no pilot, but they hook onto the unnamed hot-air balloon and attempt to salvage it. Matt, who is the smallest and lightest of the crew, gets assigned the task of checking for passengers and cutting the balloon loose from the basket. The pilot, an elderly man who is gravely ill, is successfully rescued, but dies shortly after being brought on board ship. Matt is hailed as a hero and taken into consideration for a promotion.

Three years later...

Rumour has it that the job of assistant sailmaker is going to be open soon. Matt is ready to leap at the opportunity, but the captain has the last word. Then the son of the owner of the Aurora takes the job instead of Matt, much to the captain's regrets.

Enter Kate de Vries and her chaperone Marjorie Simpkins. Kate is on a scientific exploration, looking to see what her grandfather saw. Her grandfather was the man rescued by the Aurora three years back, and apparently he discovered an entirely new species. When the Aurora is knocked off-course by pirates and a storm, Kate and Matt find cloud cats, the new species, on an uncharted island. But the island is home to Viktor Spirzglas, one of the most formidable air pirates of the time, and Kate and Matt end up caught.

I really liked this book because it held my interest quite well. Ships that fly are utterly fascinating to me, and I'd like to hopefully live long enough to see a giant zeppelin that can carry hundreds of passengers. I recommend this book to anyone who likes adventure stories, complete with pirates and battles and the like. The characters are very well-built-up and the storyline is so well-written that you never know what will happen next.