Airman is a book by Eoin Colfer
http://umluk.com/tsh/images/books/airman.jpg
Airman is set in the 1890's on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast. It is the story of Conor Broekhart, a young Saltee Islander whose father, Declan, is the King's bodyguard. When Conor discovers that the power hungry Marshall Hugo Bonvilain is organizing a military coup, the king is murdered and Conor is blamed for the crime and thrown into prison.
In prison, Conor passes the solitary months by scratching designs for flying machines into the walls. This has always been his dream, to win the race for flight. After two years, Conor now sixteen, plans and executes a daring escape to the mainland. Initially he plans to return home, but realizes that this would put his entire family in danger, so instead he builds a glider to fly to the prison island and reclaim the diamonds he buried there from the prison mine. Eight bags of diamonds, means eight trips.
http://umluk.com/tsh/images/books/airman.jpg
Airman is set in the 1890's on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast. It is the story of Conor Broekhart, a young Saltee Islander whose father, Declan, is the King's bodyguard. When Conor discovers that the power hungry Marshall Hugo Bonvilain is organizing a military coup, the king is murdered and Conor is blamed for the crime and thrown into prison.
In prison, Conor passes the solitary months by scratching designs for flying machines into the walls. This has always been his dream, to win the race for flight. After two years, Conor now sixteen, plans and executes a daring escape to the mainland. Initially he plans to return home, but realizes that this would put his entire family in danger, so instead he builds a glider to fly to the prison island and reclaim the diamonds he buried there from the prison mine. Eight bags of diamonds, means eight trips.
