secondgeneration airshipman, cabin boy Matt Cruse catches a glimpse of a sinking balloon ship, and helps engineer the daring rescue of its sole occupant.
While dying, the balloonist tells Matt about magnificent winged creatures, On a later cruise, the dead man's granddaughter Kate arrives to find whatever her grandfather saw, A little bit of piracy and some stormy weather adds some spice to the story, Personally, I thought Leviathan by Scott Westerfield was a better story and more steampunk,.stars.
This is essentially a perfect adventure story, Its not sweeping and meaningful it doesnt contain the answers to life, the universe, and everything
nor does it reach for them.
Its scope is smaller, but its swashbuckling and fastpaced and really thrilling,
Im kind of in awe, actually: I had such a great time reading this! The tone is perfect.
Even at the end, when so many things are happening at once, the way little shocking moments are revealed is very well done given just the right amount of time.
And theres this:
“If I start calling you Kate now when its just the two of us, I might slip up in public, and thatd be seen as impertinent.AND:
”
“Silly rules. ”
“People like you invented them, Not me. ”
“But were very fond of our things,” said one of the ladies wistfully,I cant believe this won a Prinz honor, by the way, It deserves it. The tone is perfect, the touch is deft, and the plot crackles along, But I feel very strongly that it would never win anything today, This book is reminiscent of the best pirate adventures of the past, but ups the ante by setting half of the tale in the air, rather than the seas, and by taking time with characterizations, rather than creating stock Baddies.
There is admittedly an odd subplot with mysterious creatures which is, . . interesting enough, but really I found myself caught up the most with the "high seas" or perhaps in this case, high over the seas drama.
Even the technical parts about the various parts of the airship, details about the mechanisms, and the behindthescenes peek into crew life on the fictional and fantastic Aurora were fascinating to me.
The pirate crew are a mixture of elegant and rough unsavory characters that feel particularly truetolife from what I've read on the subject.
These villains are neither caricatures nor buffoons, and they evoke a sense of danger that's almost palpable.
Reluctant readers might be thrown by the length and the formality in the speech of the characters who are after all, from another time.
Still, I think a case could be made for this as a sort of crossover for a boy who reads mainly nonfiction and is interested in nautical subjects, aviation, or real life pirates.
And who doesn't love that Many girls will find plenty of things to hold their interest as well between the adventure and the smart, strongminded, and brave Kate, who befriends the protagonist and leaves such a strong impression on the reader that she really comes close to stealing the show at times.
Finally, a favorite from middle school that holds up! This series will always hold a special place in my heart, as it was not only my first official YA that I unexpectedly loved after dragging my heels on reading it for a young adult book conference, but Kenneth Oppel is the first author I ever met and got books signed from.
Side note, from what I remember from my personal experience, he's truly a wonderful witty and funny person, and I will never forget how kind he was when I bumbled up to him at the signing table and started gushing before he could get a word in.
Naturally, I was a bit hesitant rereading it, I just havent had much luck rereading favorites recently especially with YA as opposed to middle grade, which seems to hold up much better in comparison, but many of those I didnt expect to love on reread, mainly because they werent that special to me to begin with.
Luckily, this book is absolutely fantastic and fun in every way, It's a great adventure story that feels timeless in both its writing and alternate history setting, Matt Cruse and Kate de Vries are great heroes to follow, Theyre both highly motivated and likeable, even if they do have their share of believable flaws, I also appreciate how Oppel handles the fact that these two are teenagers and thus dont always act very mature, but he makes that immaturity understandable rather than obnoxious.
Also, this is to date one of my favorite "fantasy" worlds, Even though it's a small change in comparison to other works like it, the way that Oppel turns "thes but airships continue to be the best source of travel" into something more expansive and believable is so much fun to watch.
/A book about airships! I really was looking forward to liking this book as it's not the typical magic fantasy and really isn't even fantasy per say.
It was a very slow moving book at first but at times I really got into it.
It's a great adventure book with a bit of a mystery,
I really don't care for first person books, because it gets really old after a while.
I found that Matt the main character and narrator was annoying, obnoxious and thought he was better then everyone else.
He came across as really arrogant,
I believe had this book been told in another way it wouldn't have been so repetative.
And sometimes it felt like the book was going on forever before we moved to a different part of the story.
A few things that bothered me about this was that the kid wasand he thought he should be captaining the ship because he was there foryears slight exaggeration but he thought he was owed so much.
I also didn't like that he acted like he knew EVERYTHING there was to know, He didn't know a lot he knew everything out there about airships,
Second thing was that he kept going on and on about how at home he felt, it was like "okay I got it the firsttimes you told me".
Overall fun read but sometimes frustrating and annoying, Great YA book that doesn't have magic in it! I did love the adventure part and it would be great for a boy! Ah, how refreshing it is to reread a previouslyread favorite.
I first read this book when I was eleven, Although I would not recommend this book to anyone younger than thirteen, I was am a very strange person and still thoroughly enjoyed it.
There is some inappropriate content a kiss, but they were young adults, not kidswhich I am a little more okay with.
The word “dmn” is used three to five times, but that is the only language,
Kate drives me crazy, Shes the character every good book needs, Matt most certainly needed her, in my opinion,
The whole mystery of the story is wonderful, The entire story held quite a bit of suspense, forcing me to read it in only a few days.
Finally, it is unique. Although I am sure there are more books written about airships, I highly doubt there are any just like this.
Exquisite characters, a riveting adventure, and an intriguing mystery make this book quite the beauty, DO
NOT
READ
THIS
REVIEW
IF
YOU
HAVE
YET
TO
FINISH
THIS
WONDERFUL
BOOK
OML Kenneth Oppel has no mercy.
Airborn is definitely competing against The Giver for the best book I read for Language Arts class.
I admit, I was a little hesitant about this book, I've never been all that interested in flight or aircraft and I thought the book would only be about that.
Nope nope nope nope.
Everything in this book was so fantastical and all the characters were wonderfully unique and delicious.
I loved Matt and Kate and their very cute friendship, Oppel didn't solely focus on the romance between them which I loved because literally every YA book has romance.
This did have romance, but it focused more on the friendships, My favorite character was no doubt, Vlad, Vlad is so so so extra and absolutely love him as a human being,
Speaking of Vlad, let's talk about ships, Not the Aurora a different kind of ship, MATT KATE MATE!! VLAD WALKEN VLAKEN!! I've never shipped characters in a book for school this much before.
Jonas Fiona is up there but they can not overthrow Vlaken!
This book reminded me a lot of the TV Show, Lost.
Lost is a about survivors of a plane crash who get stranded on a mysterious island, The same thing happens in Airborn, but definitely not as terrifying, .
The Cloud Cats were absolutely wonderful! I just realized how much I am using the word wonderful in this review, whoops.
I loved how Kate amp Matt's Cloud Cat oml that rhymed slayed and feasted on a good portion of the pirates.
PIRATES! PIRATES! PIRATES! I've never been all that interested in pirate books, Captain Hook left a lasting impression on me, so I've been a bit of a pirate hater for most of my life.
OH MY WAS I WRONG, The pirates in this book were so devious but were a little hesitant to kill, This disappointed me a tiny bit because I wanted them to STAB STAB STAB STAB even though they were antagonists and most likely would kill my favorite characters.
As long as they don't slay Vlad, Kate or Matt i'm fine, This isn't saying I didn't like the other characters but I love some good ol' murder in my novels.
HEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHE. R. I. P. Bruce even though I didn't like him that much, HE DIDNT DESERVE IT. KENNETH OPPEL HAS NO MERCY BUT I WISH HE HAD EVEN LESS MERCY BECAUSE MURDER AND MISCHIEF AND SLAYING AND PIRATES AND STUFF.
CRYPTIDS! CRYPTIDS! CRYPTIDS! I loved all the exploring involved within this novel, Some of my favorite scenes involved Kate and Matt adventuring deeper in the island BUT THOSE DARN PIRATES UGH.
The food! All of the food is this book made some hungry and I honestly want to hire Vlad so badly it's not even funny.
Mostly I've been rambling about the setting and the characters and not much about the writing.
BUT THE WRITING WAS WONDERFUL there's that word again Kyrie Lee Ross,, I loved all of the dialogue and all of the conversations were so great! The descriptions of the island and creatures were very unique.
I think I'm done now, I've never had this much fun writing a review, Woah. If you like a lot of action in your reading, you'll love Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel.
ThisPrintz honor title reads just like watching a movie, Mr. Cruse is awfully young to work aboard a luxury airship, Even if he is only a cabin boy, he aspires to greater responsibility, Luckily, many opportunities arise for him to prove his mettle to the captain, But after the Aurora is attacked by pirates and left foundering after a typhoon, Matt's cunning and ability face test after test, leaving him physically and mentally challenged.
I'm so glad I decided to listen to the Full Cast Audio production of this young adult novel.
In fact, I didn't realize until after I had listened to it that it won aAudie Award.
I believe it. I was riveted during this novel, even though I have read the book and its sequel before.
Riveted while driving through whirling snow on a Chicago interstate is a little dangerous, but I survived.
returnreturnMatt Cruse was born on an airship and has worked on one since the age of, He's only a cabin boy, but knows everything about the ship and has dreams of flying his own one day.
Once he meets Ms. Kate de Vries spelling he obtains a new interest, She is pretty, rich, demanding, intelligent, and strong minded, She insists that her grandfather discovered a new mammal high above an island in the Pacificus, and wants Matt to help her prove it.
And, boy, do they ever, They find cloud cats, are ransacked by pirates and end up shipwrecked in the middle of nowhere.
This adventure story is so exciting and I wish I could get more students to read it.
It's a Printz honor book, too, so even the stuffy literary librarians agree that this book has quality! :.