Air Born

Sailing toward dawn, and I was perched atop the crow's nest, being the ship's eyes. We were two nights out of Sydney, and there'd been no weather to speak of so far. I was keeping watch on a dark stack of nimbus clouds off to the northwest, but we were leaving it far behind, and it looked to be smooth going all the way back to Lionsgate City. Like riding a cloud. . . . Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. It is the life Matt's always wanted; convinced he's lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. One night he meets a dying balloonist who speaks of beautiful creatures drifting through the skies. It is only after Matt meets the balloonist's granddaughter that he realizes that the man's ravings may, in fact, have been true, and that the creatures are completely real and utterly mysterious. In a swashbuckling adventure reminiscent of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Oppel, author of the best-selling Silverwing trilogy, creates an imagined world in which the air is populated by transcontinental voyagers, pirates, and beings never before dreamed of by the humans who sail the skies.

After thousands of years, the ancient 18th of Ahmose are still on the hunt for the secret of flight, forcing Avitorians to hide in fear. Facing the threat of capture, Leif's dreams are shattered and he is forced to decide between hiding or embracing his heritage. -- Air Born is a Young Adult, Urban Fantasy novel.

Air Born is book one in the exciting unique YA crossover sci-fi series, Generation Icarus. Based on the Wattpad sensation First Flight which had 1 million + downloads, this is a completely revised four book series. The fast moving action story also explores timely issues in society: diversity, the real effects of uncontrolled experiments, developing identity and community, and in many ways is a metaphor for the struggles of coming of age.My past. My present. My future.Destroyed in an instant.So, who am I?Seventeen-year-old Tyler Owen is smart, good-looking, and destined to be a fighter pilot. He's mapped out his life and knows exactly where he's headed. That is, until his first solo sky-dive, when he undergoes a terrifying transformation. Caught on camera, Tyler becomes a viral hit. Everyone wants a piece of him, including the sinister Evolutionary Corporation and a religious cult known as the Angelists.But the worldwide media coverage also alerts others like him. Driven by instinct, they come together and form the Flight. The first of an extraordinary new species, they have only one way to survive.Fly.

Born to Fly is the gripping story of the fearless women pilots who aimed for the skies—and beyond. Just nine years after American women finally got the right to vote, a group of trailblazers soared to new heights in the 1929 Air Derby, the first women's air race across the U.S. Follow the incredible lives of legend Amelia Earhart, who has captivated generations; Marvel Crosson, who built a plane before she even learned how to fly; Louise Thaden, who shattered jaw-dropping altitude records; and Elinor Smith, who at age seventeen made headlines when she flew under the Brooklyn Bridge. These awe-inspiring stories culminate in a suspenseful, nail-biting rate across the country that brings to life the glory and grit of the dangerous and thrilling early days of flying, expertly told by the master of nonfiction history for young readers, National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin. Featuring illustrations by Bijou Karman.

Celebrate the 10th anniversary of the award-winning aerial adventure that started it all Winner of the Governor General’s Award, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and recipient of many other national and international honours, Airborn fired the imaginations of readers around the world when it was first published in 2004 and its popularity has never waned. Airborn was followed by the acclaimed sequels Skybreaker, winner of the Red Maple Award and the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Award, and Starclimber, a Canadian Library Association Children's Book of the Year Award Honour Book.With cover illustrations by Jim Tierney, mark a new decade of soaring adventures for this trio of contemporary classics.

In Airborn, enter a past in which airplanes have never been invented, giant airships rule the skies and the glittering skyscrapers of Lionsgate City, Canada’s greatest metropolis, rise near the Pacificus Ocean. When Matt Cruse, the cabin boy on the luxury airship Aurora, fearlessly performs a dramatic rescue to save an old man from his damaged hot air balloon, he doesn’t know what events he’s setting in motion. Will he and the balloonist’s fiery granddaughter, Kate de Vries, be able to solve the mystery of impossible flying creatures seen among the clouds? And will they figure it out before pirates and shipwreck end their voyage forever? Pushed high into the sky by a storm over the Indian Ocean, the decrepit training ship Flotsam makes an astonishing discovery before being forced to descend. Adrift at 20,000 feet is a tattered, ice-crusted airship bearing the name Hyperion. Could it really be the legendary lost craft, now a vast treasure and a frozen mausoleum to a ghostly crew? Matt Cruse is the only member of Flotsam’s oxygen-starved crew able to remember the ghost ship’s coordinates—and it seems as if everyone in the fabulous city of Paris wants them. In Skybreaker, Matt and Kate de Vries are challenged with another thrilling adventure, this time among the icy dangers and strange wonders of the upper atmosphere. At long last, Matt Cruse is at the helm. Though it’s only a summer job piloting a humble aerocrane, he’s thrilled to be helping to build the Celestial Tower, Paris’s extraordinary gateway to outer space. But Matt’s idyllic summer is short-lived. He narrowly survives a deadly attack by the fanatical Babelites, who are opposed to humans reaching the heavens. Worse still, his nights spent stargazing with Kate de Vries must end when she’s summoned back to Lionsgate City by her parents. But then the chance of a lifetime boosts Matt’s hopes of being airborne once more. Canada wants to reach space first, and the Canadian Minister of Air has asked Kate to join the first expedition as an expert on aerial zoology. There’s a place for Matt, too—if he can pass the gruelling tests to become one of the world’s first astralnauts on board the incredible ship Starclimber.

A legendary ghost ship. An incredible treasure. A death-defying adventure. Forty years ago, the airship Hyperion vanished with untold riches in its hold. Now, accompanied by heiress Kate de Vries and a mysterious gypsy, Matt Cruse is determined to recover the ship and its treasures. But 20,000 feet above the Earth's surface, pursued by those who have hunted the Hyperion since its disappearance, and surrounded by deadly high-altitude life forms, Matt and his companions soon find themselves fighting not only for the Hyperion—but for their very lives.

Ever since she can remember, Bird has loved flying in small propeller airplanes with her mechanic dad. When the local airstrip is turned into a military flight school, Bird is in heaven—and she manages to turn one young airman's interest in her older sister into some personal flight lessons. Then a young Japanese American student named Kenji Fujita joins Bird's class, and the entire school seems to be convinced that he's a spy, a secret agent, or at the very least, that he and his uncle want the Japs to win. But through a class project, Bird and Kenji befriend each other and accidentally discover real spy activity in the area. So begins an adventure that will shake the town and may even change the future of the United States. Winner of the Dell Yearling Contest