April 1, 2025
Another Take on the Warriors Series
by Erin Hunter 
On my shelf in my mini library, the biggest series with the most beat-up spines is the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. The name “Erin Hunter” is a pseudonym for the authors Cherith Baldry, Rosie Best, Kate Cary, Victoria Holmes, Clarissa Hutton, Inbali Iserles, and Tui T. Sutherland. The series has 97 books in total, the first being Into the Wild, which was published in 2003. I haven’t bought another book for the series since I was in middle school, but my collection is still about 20 books. It’s a little wild to see that the authors are continuing to expand on this series to this day.
Warriors follows along the adventures of feral cats who live in Clans that each have their own territory and unique characteristics. There were five main clans: ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan, SkyClan, and WindClan. Each Clan adheres to a strict warrior code that holds honor and emphasizes loyalty, bravery, and skills in combat. The Clans themselves are guided by their ancestors in StarClan through their sent prophecies and other signs.
At the very start of the series, we meet a housecat named Rusty who joined ThunderClan. The first series (The Prophecies Begin), consists of six books and follows the adventures of Rusty. He is renamed Firepaw after joining ThunderClan and is searching for the honor of becoming an apprentice following a fight with one of ThunderClan’s warriors, Longtail.” Further into the series, Firepaw discovers a prophecy of a fire, the struggles against the rival sinister ShadowClan, and the dark ambitions of betrayal within ThunderClan.
If you’re ever in the mood to walk down nostalgia lane, this series offers all the right points of those great middle–school memories!
—Jenna Fintelmann