Warriors and Warrior Cats, the Book Series by Erin Hunter

Warriors is the title of the book series about clans of cats, collectively known as Warrior Cats, by author Erin Hunter. 'Erin hunter' is a pseudonym for a group of writers including Tui Sutherland, Kate Cary and Cherith Baldry, along with editor Victories Holmes who develops the plots.

Warrior cats have grabbed the imagination of thousands of youngsters, and many websites have been set up allowing the kids to adopt virtual pets, cats of course, and otherwise interact with each other under the guise of a cat.

This makes for some interesting conversations in the warrior chatrooms as each user attempts to act and talk like a cat. If cats could talk, that is.

On an educational basis, anything which encourages children to practise their reading and writing skills while at the same time having their imaginations stimulated has to be applauded.

Warriors have hit the right spot and are heading for superstardom.

So far, there have been 6 complete Warrior series published, each with a set of six books.

Warriors is a fantasy series about groups of feral cats, called Clans.

Each clan of cats have their own particular characteristics and characters, and all follow the same chosen path laid down by their ancestors.

They all live in a forest with the exception of BloodClan who live in a nearby city as strays.

• ThunderClan
• WindClan
• ShadowClan
• RiverClan
• SkyClan
• BloodClan who are not considered to be a true clan as they do not believe in StarClan.

The StarClan are the spiritual leaders of the Clans.

When warrior cats die, their spirits go to StarClan which is a group of stars on the Milky Way known as Silverpelt, and each star on this system represents a dead warrior cat.

This is the warrior cat equivalent of Heaven, and warrior cats who go there have served the Clan well when alive.

Members of the StarClan often pass messages on to the Clan they belonged to when living, through the medicine cat, who is the healer and spiritual saviour of each Clan.

The medicine cat never mates, nor has kittens, in order to give their undivided attention to their duties which include healing sick or injured cats with herbs as well as communicating with StarClan cats.

Bad Warrior Cats who wilfully killed or maimed or otherwise caused great suffering to others get sent to the warrior cat equivalent of Hell, called The Place of No Stars.

Sometimes called The Black Forest.

Thunderclan warrior cats live deep in the forest surrounded by both the ShadowClan and RiverClan. Many of their troubles therefore arise with those two Clans and not so much the WindClan with whom they share very little border territory.

The warrior cats from the ThunderClan are adept at spring crouching, called the "hunter's crouch", used as they are to hunting for food through the forest's thick undergrowth. They are the only warrior cats who can do this.

Their diet is made up of small animals and birds, including magpies, thrushes, squirrels, mice, voles and rabbits.

WindClan warrior cats live in the plains to the north of the forest, and their main prey is rabbits.

Because of this, they can run extremely fast, much faster than the other Clans.

However, they also tend to run in the face of danger or trouble which gives them the reputation of being cowardly.

Most of their problems and fights stem from the ShadowClan and the RiverClan.

Often, ThunderClan cats protect and defend WindClan cats.

RiverClan warrior cats live next to the stream that runs through their territory. They can fish and swim, and have lovely shiny, sleek coats. their diet consists mainly of fish and small water animals such as water-voles.

They are mainly peaceful, but occasionally ally themselves with the aggressive ShadowClan, believing there to be a certain protection offered by aligning themselves with their perceived strongest Clan.

RiverClan cats are the only cats that can swim, and indeed are powerful swimmers, even against fast moving currents.

ShadowClan warrior cats live in a dark and gloomy territory that has swamps and bog-lands on which grows evergreen pine trees to cast a shadow over the whole area.

Their speciality is their stealth and their ability to see in almost complete darkness as they hunt down night animals for food.

Their prey consists mostly of lizards, frogs, voles and the occasional rat. Rats carry diseases so they have to be careful when eating them.

ShadowClan appear to be nasty cats but they are 100% devoted to their leaders and blindly obey orders without question. They have had a succession of truly evil leaders.

SkyClan warrior cats used to live in the forest, but were driven out of their territory when the nearby city Twolegplace was built.

They ended up having to leave the area and found a situation in a rocky canyon where they were attacked by a pack of intelligent rats and practically wiped out.

The survivors had scattered far and wide, but they are brought back together in the course of the books with the help of Firestar and Sandstorm.

SkyClan cats have a unique jumping ability.

BloodClan are group of feral cats that live in Twolegplace, the city. A mix of ex-pets (called kittypets), rogues and loners, they live in the suburbs and forage for food through the bins and rubbish dumps.

They do not have a structured organization like the other Clans, and they do not believe in StarClan.

They are identifiable by the teeth-laden collars they wear, and are ruled by a form of dictatorship where revenge is swift and deadly if they fail to obey.

Within each clan of warrior cats, each cat has a role to play.

Leader

• There is a leader, whose name is given by StarClan, as well as his nine lives. The leader is responsible for promoting apprentice warriors to full warriors, and conducting ceremonies to turn the kittens, called kits, into apprentice warriors.

Deputy Leader

• The deputy leader takes care of the lesser day-today responsibilities within the Clan including organizing patrols. The deputy will take over leadership on the death of the leader.

Medicine Cat

• The medicine cat is responsible for taking care of the health of the Clan. Every half-moon (two weeks) the medicine cats from each Clan meet at the Moonpool or Moonstone to receive messages from the StarClan. The medicine cat never takes a mate.

Medicine cat apprentice

• Each medicine cat has an apprentice whose job it is to gather herbs and learn about how to use them to cure ailments. The apprentice takes over the role of medicine cat on the death of the current medicine cat.

Queen cats

• Queen cats bear and raise kits, but when not pregnant or nursing are expected to resume their duties as warrior cats.

Apprentice warriors

• All kits become apprentice warriors when they reach 6 moons of age (6 months), and learn their skills from the full-blooded warrior cats.

Warrior cats

• Warrior cats are hunters as well as defenders of the Clan.

Elders

• Old and injured cats are retired and are called Elders, being cared for by younger members of the Clan. They pass on knowledge and wisdom gained, and it is their task to bury dead Clanmates.

There is rumored to be a Warrior Cat's movie being released this year (2011) but there is no official word of it yet.

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