Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel
Matt Cruse wasn't born on earth.
He was born high in the sky in a dirigible, one of the fantastic fleet of ships with skeletons of alumiron, held aloft by bags of goldbeaters skin filled with the lightest gas on the planet: hydrium .
He, like his father before him works on these magnificent machines. Unfortunately for him he is a lowly cabin boy and most of his pay gets sent to his mother and sisters, his father died 3 years ago and is therefore unable to support them.
Through a supposed ballooning incident he meets Kate de Vries, a bright and knowledge hungry female (not to mention beautiful as Matt soon realises) in search of her grandfather's dreams. Her search pits both of them against storms, pirates and flying things with pointy teeth.
This book gives any reader a good rolling adventure story that unlike many does not push but slides along and I would recommend this to anybody.
