Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

AH! I love Kenneth Oppel. This author is the one who wrote the Silverwing trilogy, and Darkwing. Those books were fantastic~ Anyway, I found out last year that he wrote the Airborn series, and I just wanted to see what it was like, so I read it. It was a great book. Full of adventure, and of course, the cloud cats were so interesting! Also, like in every book that Kenneth Oppel creates, someone special dies. It's quite annoying, no offense! Sure, Bruce wasn't a main character, but he tried to so hard to fit in...He was a good guy. Anyway, here's a summary! I'm skipping a lot of details!!!

Matt Cruse is the cabin boy of the airship, Aurora. At the beginning, Matt saves an old man found in a destroyed air balloon, but he dies shortly. He rambles about 'beautiful creatures'. The book goes to the present, and the Aurora is setting sail to Sydney. One of the passengers he meets is Kate de Vries, the old man's granddaughter. Kate is on the ship so that she can prove that these 'beautiful creatures' are real. She has her grandfather's journal, full of detail about these creatures. The journal states that these creatures are as white as the clouds, and large as panthers. However, these creatures never touch the ground in their entire life and are born knowing how to fly. Eventually, pirates raid the ship, which leads to the airship being attacked by a typhoon and being shipwrecked on an island. However, Kate and Matt discover this island is where the creatures are located! They find an actual skeleton of one, and even find a live one that is crippled. They name these animals "Cloud Cats". Without hydrium, the ship cannot leave the island, so they are marooned for about a week or so (I think). When trying to take a picture of the cloud cat, Kate and Matt find pirates on the island and playact as survivors of wreck, trying to protect the Aurora. Eventually, they escape and find Bruce, who was with them when trying to take a picture of the cloud cat. They do a rescue mission and tada!! They are saved. (AKK I SKIPPED SO MUCH DETAILS BUT I CANT CAUSE I HAVE TO HURRY. BRUCE DIES AND TWO PIRATES ARE KILLED BY CLOUD CATS...DETAILS AKK) Six months later, Kate is exhibiting the cloud cat skeleton and giving presentations, while Matt is living his dream of going to the Air Academy.