The Paw Print

Warriors Series

by Kayla

Cats are common household pets and good companions. In a new literary series you will become captivated by the feral colony of cats and lives of the forest cats. The Warrior Series by Erin Hunter are must reads.

In the Warriors books, cats live in Clans in the forest—the WindClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan and ThunderClan. The warrior ancestors in StarClan watch over them. The Clans fight among each other and protect their borders from the Twolegs, or humans. Do you sense the resemblance to our own race?

All cats are ranked and trained by their age and maturity level, and their names reflect their rank. The kits, once old enough, train to become warriors and learn as an apprentice. The last part of their name is changed to ‘paw’ instead of ‘kit.’

Once they become a warrior, the Clan leader chooses the last name—like ‘fur’, ‘heart’ or ‘claw’. If they become the Clan Leader, they change the last half of their name to ‘star’ in honor of StarClan. Rankings exist as kits, apprentices, warriors, elders, queens, deputy, medicine cat and leader.

There are six books in the first Warriors series, all led in third person from Fireheart. He starts his life as a household kitten—kittypet—named Rusty. Bluestar, the ThunderClan leader, takes interest in him when she sees his flame-colored pelt. She offers to let him join ThunderClan. He accepts and moves to their camp. He is renamed Firekit for his bright fur. He quickly becomes an apprentice and his name changes to Firepaw. He learns quickly and becomes a warrior—Fireheart. Bluestar entrusts the deputyship to him. She dies defending her clan, and Fireheart becomes leader of ThunderClan.

Because of his kittypet roots, all the cats doubt him, but he proves them wrong time and time again.

The warriors books are appealing to readers of all ages and you will find it hard to put the book down. I recommend this series to anyone with a love of animals.

The second series called Warriors: The New Prophecy, centers around a cat named Brambleclaw. The third series, Warriors: Power of Three, is based on the lives of three cats—Lionkit, Jaykit and Hollykit who become part of a prophecy at a young age.