Book summery and life

Life update: I got off work a few hours ago. Not bad, I spent most of the time cleaning, which I actually enjoy doing. I hope I get to continue cleaning.

Now, I have a summery of the children's book series, "Warriors" which is about cats. Here it is!

Warriors

by

Erin Hunter

I bought this series after reading the first book of Warriors: the new Prophecy and Firestar’s Quest. As this is a young adult series, I was expecting a light read, with characters I was only mildly interested in. Instead, what I found was a well thought out world of Clan-cats. There are a large number of Cats, and you’d think that after a while keeping all the characters strait would be difficult, particularly with the name changes each cat goes through. But each cat was different, not only in physical description but in personality as well.

This first series is about Firestar, who is known first as Rusty, a common house cat. One day Rusty decides to go off and explore the forest, only to be jumped by a wild cat (Graypaw). After this confrontation, Rusty is offered the opportunity to join ThunderClan, one of the four cat clans in the forest. Of course, Rusty decides to go with them; if he didn’t there wouldn’t be a story, after all. Upon joining the clan, Rusty is renamed Firepaw. He and his fellow apprentices train hard in the forest, but soon uncover a plot laid by Tigerclaw, one of the warriors in Thunderclan. Apparently, Tigerclaw is killing off other cats so he may become the next deputy, and then leader after Bluestar.

Firepaw is torn on what to do. He’s sure that Tigerclaw is going to kill one of his best friends, and makes the hard decision to lie to the clan and help Ravenpaw escape. Graypaw is sure that his two friends are overreacting, but goes along with it. During the course of the series, Firepaw thwarts Tigerclaw every step of the way with Graypaw’s help, forcing the clan to come to realizations about themselves, and their warrior code. The story continues on threw all 6 books, following Firepaw’s promotion into warrior-hood (Firepelt), deputy-ship, and eventual leadership (Firestar).

At first blush, you’d think that this would be the normal epic tale of good v.s. evil. Firepelt v.s. Tigerclaw, all the way through the series. In reality, it’s much more than that. Tigerclaw isn’t even all evil. He has his good points, many of which Firepelt admires. Then, you throw in clan dynamics within clans, and between clans, and you get a story that is very vibrant. Tigerclaw is by no means the only threat either. Most of the threats challenge all the cats, and focus on cooperation to solve them.

The stories deal also with accepting people who are different then you, not only in the cooperation between the clans, but in Firestar himself, who was originally a ‘kitty-pet’. Love and friendship also play an important part in the story, blending nicely with the flow of it.

The only real flaw in the series is Firestar is the Quintessential Good Guy. He’s always right, always knows just what to do. It gets old after a while. Even when he doubts himself, it always feels a bit flat. Like, he feels he should doubt himself, but doesn’t really.

All and all, I’d give this series an 8 out of 10. It was a fast read, but I really got into it. Also, I liked how the lines between right and wrong were not as black and white as they normally are in stories like this. I would have liked a bit more time to have been spent on some of the supplemental characters, or even on the enemies, but as a children’s series, it was very well done.

~Sprig