The first in an ever-growing series of children's novels devoted to the adventures of four rival cat-clans, Into the Wild follows the story of Rusty, a kittypet (domesticated pet cat) whose dreams of the forest beyond his backyard prove prophetic. Leaving the safety of his twoleg (human) home behind, after a late night confrontation in the forest leads to an invitation to join ThunderClan, Rusty the Kittypet becomes Firepaw the Apprentice, and begins his training to become a Warrior. But with a fierce inter-clan competition for hunting grounds raging, Firepaw has entered a world of conflict and uncertainty, where even those he believes to be allies might not be all they claim...Chosen as the July selection for the Children's Fiction Club to which I belong, Into the Wild is anthropomorphic animal fantasy that's light on the anthropomorphism. Or, I suppose I should say, while these kitties think and plan, speak to one another intelligently, and have complicated social structures, they don't walk on two feet, à la Puss in Boots, nor do they wield swords. In short: this isn't Redwall. Although I have a fondness for that other kind of animal fantasy (I did grow up reading about Reepicheep, the gallant, swash-buckling mouse-hero of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, after all), I appreciated the more "realistic" approach adopted here. I like the fact that these cats fought and lived like cats.On the other hand, there's no denying that the author's constant use of "meowed," "mewled" and "yowled" got a little tired after a while - OK, Erin Hunter! I wanted to shout We get it! They're cats! - and that this is a story that takes itself very seriously. For the adult reader, the epic tone used to describe the conflicts in what is essentially a small, enclosed world, can be a little difficult to take, making the necessary suspension of disbelief almost impossible. To be absolutely honest, I was convinced, halfway through the book, that this review was going to be a massive pan. Fortunately, as the story progressed, I found myself becoming more involved, both in the world, and with the characters. I suspected Tigerclaw all along - I don't think even Erin Hunter's most devoted fans could claim her series was anything but predictable - but it was still engrossing to see my suspicions confirmed. I came to have a great fondness for Firepaw, Yellowfang, and Bluestar, and when, at the end, the ThunderClan kits are abducted, I was anxiously reading along, to see whether they would be rescued. In short: I was drawn in, and plan to read the next installment. Despite all my criticisms of the book, clearly it did something right!

Review by my daughter, Sarah (who is 8):

I really like this book. A household cat named Rusty goes exploring in the forest near his home. He gets attacked by Greypaw and chased out of the forest, but he stops and fights back. Members of the ThunderClan are impressed and invite him to become a warrior.

The next morning, Rusty says yes and joins the ThunderClan and gets his name changed to Firepaw. He likes being a part of the clan and living like a wild cat, and he ate his first mouse. Then he learns to hunt for the clan, catching mice and rabbits.

Later in the book, one of the clan warriors Tigerclaw dies by a ShadowClan attack. Life as a warrior is tough. But I liked the story anyway, because at the end, Firepaw gets his name upgraded to Fireheart.

Although I understood why the authors chose the kinds of names that they did (Erin Hunter is a pen name for 3 different people), the characters' names felt a little repetitive and confusing at times. That was my biggest complaint about the book. Aside from that, I thought the writers did an excellent job of creating a believable world of tribalistic cats. My kids and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it together and are looking forward to reading more in the series.

This review is by Pippi, guest reviewer, age 1 and a half; tabby cat.

This is a book about cats who live in the wild and they catch mice and eat them and they fight. There are four colonies of cats and one of them is mean and steals the other colonies food.

At first I thought this book was hard to read because even though it's written in English they try to translate cat words into English so it's hard to follow at first until you get used to the cat words.

At the beginning of the story Rusty is a housecat and humans take care of him but then he decides he wants to be a warrior so he joins a clan of cats. They never say what happens to his humans but I bet they miss him a lot. There are not many humans in this book and the ones that are are bad humans. I live with nice humans so I don't know what this is like.

Mama says I should read Watership Down because the human author did a nice job of making a story about animals that sound real, kind of like this book does, but that story is about bunnies and who cares about bunnies anyway?

This book had a slow start for me. However by the end of the book I could not put it down. I really loved Fireheart and the others of the Thunder Clan and I'm looking forward to the next book.

Interesting storyline. A must for cat lovers. I liked the map at the beginning of the book.

This is one the best books I have read! I love cats and can't wait to get the next book in the series. This was the first book that I read by Erin Hunter and it was great, can't wait for the new "Survivors" series to come out.

In the book "Warriors: Into the Wild" Rusty, an orange house cat, is baffled by his dream of hunting mice and decides to go into the local woods. Ignoring his friend's warning of the wild cats, Rusty stumbles into a fight with a warrior apprentice named Graypaw. Near the younge apprentice is the Thunder Clan leader Bluestar and a warrior named Lionheart. Impressed by the kittens wits and fighting skills, she asks him to join her clan and live as a wild cat. Hesitant, Rusty decides to meet them next afternoon and eventually goes to become part of the clan. His presece makes many taunt him for being a kittypet, but he scilences them by fighting the bully Longtail. After only one night, Redtail the clan deputy is killed in battle by Oakheart a RiverClan cat. Tigerclaw claimed that he killed Oakheart soon after words and is congradulated for his bravery. After living in the clan for two months, Firepaw (Rusty), is begining to hunt on his first task when he suddenly runs into ShadowClan's cast out medicine cat named Yellowfang. To protect the clan, Firepaw badly injures Yellowang and gives her prey which he also eats. Soon, he is punished for eating the prey and has to treat Yellowfang until she recovers. After Yellowfang is better, Firepaw begins to do more hunting tasks and practices fighting moves with his mentor Bluestar. Tension with ShadowClan rise when they try to take ThunderClan hunting grounds, and they have driven out WindClan from its territory. One shocking day, Ravenpaw admits he saw his mentor Tigerclaw murder Redtail after Redtail killed Oakheart. Firepaw wanted to tell Bluestar, but he never got the chance. After the apprentices take Bluestar and Tigerclaw to the Moonstone to talke to their warrior ancesters called StarClan, a battle ragged in the ThunderClan terriory against ShadowClan. Many were killed inclueding Lionheart, so Tigerclaw was appointed deputy. Life became harder for Ravenpaw when Tigerclaw plot to kill him and the time came to save him when the kits were stolen from the den and the medicine cat died. Firepaw was set out to find YellowFang to see if she took them to ShadowClan so he took Ravenpaw to Barley's barn and live thier instead. Once Firepaw found Yellowfang, she say who murdered Spottedleaf and took the kits and offered to help get them back. With the help of a group of warriors and ShadowClan elders who want to over throw their leader, they over through the leader and took the kits back home. For his bravery, Graypaw and Firepaw became Graystrip and Fireheart to become true Warriors. I absolutly love this series, but it is hard to make a summary of this book. Their is so much detail that it can be hard to fit in a long paragraph! I wish Fireheart could have told Bluestar about Tigerclaw before the end of the book. She probebly wouldn't believe him unless Ravenpaw told her before he left and was claimed dead to hid himself. I really want the Cat Clans to egsist, but saddly cats can't do many of these things. But the book makes them act like really smart cats that are just like my own. Freckles, Nellie, and Sophie, my cats, probebly would not survive in the Clan, but they sure do act like them sometimes. I hope that cat lovers enjoy this book. :)

Warriors book 1,(Into the Wild), is a very interesting book about warrior cats. Although it is a good book, some parts are more confusing than others, and cats lovers may fing the book sad and depressing. Besides that, the book is soooooo awesome, I have started collecting the WHOLE series!!!!!!!!!!!!