Matt is skeptical of the account, but Kate believes that the creatures are real and the Aurora intersects with their migration route. Eventually, the creatures migrate on, which Matt notes occurred just five days before the Aurora picked up Kate’s grandfather. He also details some of the creatures’ unusual mating and feeding habits. Kate’s grandfather describes them as a cross between a bat and a human. Matt takes the notebooks back to his cabin and reads the account of the strange creatures. That night, Kate seeks Matt out and shares her grandfather’s notebooks with him. She is on the airship to look for the creatures her grandfather described before his death. Kate is the granddaughter of the balloon pilot and a talented airship engineer. The next day, a wealthy passenger named Kate de Vries boards the ship. The man tells Matt about mysterious ghostly creatures that he saw in the sky, then he passes away.

Matt helps to rescue the injured pilot from the balloon. One night while on watch, Matt spots a drifting hot air balloon that does not respond when the captain of the Aurora tries to raise it on the radio. Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the airship Aurora. Printz Award honor, and a Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon award. The book has won several awards, including a Governor General's Award for children's literature, a Michael L. It is set in an alternate universe where airships and hot air balloons have replaced airplanes as the primary mode of travel. Airborn is a 2004 science fiction young adult novel by Kenneth Oppel.

Airborn trilogy