Airman
In the 1890s Conor and his family live on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast. Conor spends his days studying the science of flight with his tutor and exploring the castle with the king’s daughter, Princess Isabella. But the boy’s idyllic life changes forever the day he discovers a deadly conspiracy against the king. When Conor tries to intervene, he is branded a traitor and thrown into jail on the prison island of Little Saltee. There, he has to fight for his life, as he and the other prisoners are forced to mine for diamonds in inhumane conditions.
There is only one way to escape Little Saltee, and that is to fly. So Conor passes the solitary months by scratching drawings of flying machines on the prison walls. The months turn into years; but eventually the day comes when Conor must find the courage to trust his revolutionary designs and take to the air.
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Eoin Colfer
Most children’s authors dream up heroes—Eoin Colfer created a criminal mastermind. And not just any criminal, but a preteen genius armed with sarcasm, technology, and a pocket full of schemes. Artemis Fowl, the boy antihero who launched a global phenomenon, didn’t arrive in a blaze of prophecy or destiny—he hacked his way into fairyland and rewrote the rulebook.
Colfer was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1965, a place he once described as “a sleepy town where nothing much happened—except in my imagination.” The son of a schoolteacher and an artist, he grew up in a household where stories and creativity weren’t just encouraged—they were woven into everyday life. He became a teacher himself, but writing was always there, bubbling beneath the surface like one of his underground fairy operations.
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