Monday, November 14, 2011

Firestar's Quest


Warriors Super Edition
By Erin Hunter
510 pgs

Review by Bear:

My favorite part was when they were going to find Skyclan, which was a clan that was driven away before Firestar came to join the forest. 


Rating: Pretty Darn Good


Ganked from Amazon:
There is peace at last between the warrior Clans, and all four are thriving. Then Firestar, legendary leader of ThunderClan, discovers a shocking secret: StarClan, the warrior ancestors who guide his paw steps, have lied to him.
Firestar must embark on a perilous quest to discover a long-forgotten truth. Whatever he finds at the end of his journey, he’s sure of one thing: Nothing will ever be the same again.

Bear took his time reading this book, although he liked the challenge of reading over 500 pages! The trouble came with Firestar accepting the challenge of rebuilding Skyclan. He paused mid-book to let me know how deeply wrong he felt that was. Firestar led the Thunderclan, he explained, and he can't take care of two clans at once!

I love the way Bear has jumped inside this series. He is emotionally connected with Firestar, especially, but with all the cats and their conflicts. I appreciate the way the cats fight with their claws and are responsible and build friendships (and eat delicious mice). There is freedom in wild cats that isn't available with people.

I am not entirely thrilled with the concept of Starclan and dead cats talking with living cats, to be honest, including the concept of the leaders meeting with Starclan and receiving nine lives literally. It's something I  talked about with the kids, as a creative idea the author came up with.

It was a fun discussion, actually. "Do you think cats really like to eat mice? Have you seen Salty eat a mouse? Does that sound delicious to you?" After getting everyone exclaiming over how they felt about eating mice we discussed how authors make books fun by adding those details and how some details are very possibly true and some are purely creative fun. Kids take things so literally, and I don't want any of ours asking Salty to talk with his ancestors.

The second series is called the Prophecy Series. I'm looking forward to more great discussions with him.