Watermark's Cool Summer Reads #7: Eoin Colfer's "Airman"
Watch News & Notes each week this summer for a featured book pick for young
readers ages 7 to 17. We'll help you find the smartest, funniest, most
exciting summer-blockbusters-on-the-page, books guaranteed to keep a
youngster reading.
"Airman" by Eoin Colfer (Hyperion, 9781423107507, $17.99, for ages 9
and older)
Eoin Colfer is best known for his hilarious Artemis Fowl novels, which
follow a young criminal mastermind who bubbles over with devious plots and
gadgets. Colfer has also written "Airman," an awesome new adventure book set
in the 1800s on a scrap of a wild island off the coast of Ireland; it's the
home of rich diamond mines, fearless sharpshooters, and a young boy meant
for the skies.
Conor Broekhart was born to fly--or rather, born flying--while his parents
sailed above Paris in an experimental balloon airship. When the ship was
shot down, his folks (a dashing father and a brilliant scientist mother)
managed a death-defying landing atop the crown of the newly made and
not-yet-assembled Statue of Liberty. From that exciting beginning, Conor
goes on to join the great race to construct the world's first true flying
machines, all while helping to protect his home islands from the threat of
wily diamond-stealing villains.
"Airman" mixes history with science fiction and pure, joyous,
edge-of-your-seat adventure. It's filled with bold characters, like clever
Conor and his brave best friend Princess Isabella, and it delivers a
boatload of daring rescues, wicked betrayals, and hairs-breadth escapes.
Colfer writes a rousing, out-sized story that will captivate readers devoted
to Artemis Fowl, to the "Eragon" books, or to Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson
and the Olympians" series. It's a perfect summer read.
Review by
Mark David Bradshaw, June 19, 2008
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