Airborn

by Kenneth Oppel

Occasionally, in the midst of the heavy reading I usually gravitate towards, its refreshing to simply read a good adventure story.  Airborn is just such a book, about a young man who works on an airship and aspires to someday fly his own.  He meet a young lady on board and they have quite an adventure with pirates, a mysterious island, and an even more mysterious animal.  It is well-written, especially as it describes with inner workings of the airship and the crew on board.  I especially loved referring to the diagram of the airship to see where all the different areas are located.  It reminds me of an old book that my grandmother gave me about a little kid taking his first ride on a clipper ship.  I'll have to review that one soon! 

It is considered a Young Adult fiction, but is appropriate for all ages.  I thoroughly enjoyed the short escape from my much more boring (but no less important) reality.  The book won the Canada's Governor General's Award and is followed by a sequel called Skybreaker, which I will be picking up at the library soon.