Airborn, Skybreaker, and Starclimber, by Kenneth Oppel

Kenneth Oppel is a superstar of Canadian teen lit.  I'd been feeling terribly neglectful for failing to read his popular, multi-award winning steampunk series, so a couple of weeks ago I set about reading all three.

Airborn, Skybreaker, and Starclimber are adventure stories with elements of survival, fantasy, and (very) light romance.  Matt Cruse, a cabinboy when we meet him, is a resourceful, hardworking, and thoughtful fellow.  Confident without arrogance and eminently capable, he saves the day on more than one occasion.

In Airborn, I found Matt to be a little too perfect, but Oppel takes him out of his comfort zone in the sequels and bestows him with a few human flaws.  His friend Kate De Vries is a  bookish-but-tough girl born into priviledge and out to prove herself in a man's world.  In other words, she's a little cliche, especially when paired against Matt's poor working-class upbringing.  Nevertheless, they're an enjoyable pair to read about, and contribute to the series' appeal to both male and female readers. 

Steampunk elements are introduced mostly as background to the story, providing cultural context or technological challenges.  Each book sees Matt and Kate aboard a different kind of air or spacecraft with structures and characteristics that our own world has never seen.

 My library shelves this series in the teen section, but the story is light enough that I'd happily recommend it to strong readers in elementary school.