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Airborn is a steampunk YA novel by Canadian author Kenneth Oppel, first published in 2004. Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a luxury passenger airship. In Matt's world, aeroplanes were never invented, and airships, filled with a gas called 'hydrium', are used for transportation instead. Aboard the Aurora, Matt rescues an injured and elderly man, Benjamin Malloy, from a damaged balloon. The man speaks of having seen some 'beautiful creatures', before dying. Later his granddaughter Kate de Vries joins the airship. A pirate raid leads to the airship crash-landing on an island, which Kate and Matt realise is where Malloy saw the animals. They discover a skeleton of one of the creatures, and a wounded specimen they call a 'cloud cat'. After two more perilous encounters with the pirates, Kate and Matt manage to escape. Airborn was critically acclaimed, winning multiple accolades including a Governor General's Award for children's literature.
