Astrid is the big star of the series.  If the fact that she is the title character wasn’t enough to tell you that, there is the fact that her name literally means “big star”.  Astrid is a 14 year-old girl inventor, from a long line of inventors.  She is extremely intelligent, but she is also intuitive and empathetic. She is kind and friendly, but shy and unassuming. She loves science and technology and is easily frustrated by superstition and silliness. She is supremely confident about herself, but not so confident in her interactions with others. This along with a certain rigidness regarding change, I associate with her being an only child.

Astrid attends Rachel Carson High School, where she is a freshman (the school year ends at the end of book 2).  Astrid’s two great inventions are: Astricite, a superconductive material, and Astridium, a lightweight but extremely strong material.  They let her create all of her other inventions, like the hoverbike and her undersea dome.  That brings us to the hardest part of writing a book like this– imagining what inventions Astrid could create.  It’s a lot harder than I really imagined at first.  But Astrid is a fun character to write and hopefully I can think up enough for her to do for a few more books at least.