Airborn

Airborn is a novel for young readers by the Canadian writer Kenneth Oppel, published in February 2004. It is the first book of the Airborn series and the first of his books to win a major award in Canada.

Matt Cruse is fourteen and works as a cabin boy aboard the Aurora, a transoceanic passenger airship. The ship stays up because she is filled with hydrium, and the novel is set in an invented world where travel of that kind is ordinary.

While he is on lookout duty Matt sees a damaged balloon with an unconscious old man in it, and he saves the man, whose name is Benjamin Molloy. Molloy dies shortly after being brought aboard, but before he does he talks about beautiful creatures he claims to have seen.

Nobody believes the story. When a rich young woman comes aboard as a passenger and begins asking about the same creatures, Matt finds that the question is not a dead man's fancy after all. The book won the Governor General's Award for children's literature in Canada in 2004.