Into the Wild (Warriors) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Into the Wild is a children's fantasy novel written by Kate Cary

Kate Cary

Kate Cary is one of the authors of the Warriors novel series, a story about wild cats, which she writes under the pen name of Erin Hunter. The other authors who also write the Warriors novel series under the pen name Erin Hunter are Cherith Baldry, Victoria Holmes, and Tui T. Sutherland...

under the pseudonym Erin Hunter

Erin Hunter

Erin Hunter is a pseudonym used by the authors Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, and Tui Sutherland, along with editor Victoria Holmes. Under this pen name, they have written two series of books. They are best known for the Warriors series, but the authors have also created another similar series called...

after concepts and outlines created and developed by Victoria Holmes

Victoria Holmes

Victoria "Vicky" Holmes comes up with the ideas for the New York Times Bestselling Warriors books, consisting of four miniseries: Warriors, Warriors: The New Prophecy, Warriors: Power of Three, and Warriors: Omen of the Stars, written by Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, and new addition Tui Sutherland...

. The novel was published by HarperCollins

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

in Canada and the United States in January 2003, and in the United Kingdom in February 2003. It is the first novel in the Warriors series. The book has been published in paperback

Paperback

Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...

,and e-book

E-book

An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...

formats in twenty different languages. The story is about a young domestic cat who leaves his human owners to join a group of forest-dwelling feral cats called ThunderClan. He is trained to defend and hunt for the Clan, becomes embroiled in a murder and betrayal within the Clan, and, at the end of the book, receives his warrior name, Fireheart, after a battle with another Clan.

The series began in 2003 when HarperCollins requested Holmes to write a book on feral cats. After creating one storyline Holmes brought in Kate Cary to finish writing the book as Holmes went behind the scenes to edit and supervise the details. Holmes has compared to the style of the book to a different language as the books are written by three separate authors. She feels that Erin Hunter must have a consistent voice the entire series. The story uses a lexicon with words such as "twoleg" substituted for "human". The style has been compared to the Harry Potter

Harry Potter

Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

series, J.R.R. Tolkien and Brian Jacques

Brian Jacques

James Brian Jacques was an English author best known for his Redwall series of novels and Castaways of the Flying Dutchman series. He also completed two collections of short stories entitled The Ribbajack & Other Curious Yarns and Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales.-Biography:Brian Jacques was born...

. Themes include family, loyalty, death, courage, and survival.Into the Wild was critically well received. Booklist

Booklist

Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. It is geared toward libraries and booksellers and is available in print or online...

believed the book would appeal to followers of Brian Jacques

Brian Jacques

' Redwall series. Among other awards, it claimed third place in the 2006 Young Reader's Choice Award.

Conception

Feral cats seemed like an excellent compromise between regular domestic pussycats and a truly wild animal: they have all the freedom and independence of living in the wild, but they would be instantly recognizable to readers as the pet lying on their lap.

— Victoria Holmes answering how the idea for Warriors began.

In 2003, HarperCollins requested Victoria Holmes to create a fantasy series about feral cats, but, being more interested in dogs and not a reader of fantasy, she was less than enthusiastic. She "couldn't imagine coming up with enough ideas". Nonetheless, she worked with the concept, expanding the storyline with elements of war, politics, revenge, doomed love, and religious conflict. Although the original plan was a stand-alone novel, enough material was created for several books, and the publisher decided upon a six-volume series. Holmes then enlisted the help of another author, Kate Cary

Kate Cary

whom Holmes had previously edited for and knew she loved cats.
The first volume, Into the Wild, was written by Kate Cary under the pseudonym Erin Hunter, and completed in about three months. Holmes continued to act behind the scenes editing and supervising details. Afterwards, Holmes began to like the idea of using cats since she realized how thoughtful they can be leading private lives without any humans realizing.

Pseudonym

With two authors at the time Holmes decided to have a pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

since having two authors would place the books at different places at libraries, confusing and possibly scaring off potential readers. The last name Hunter was chosen since it put the books next to the Redwall

Redwall

Redwall, by Brian Jacques, is a series of fantasy novels. It is the title of the first book of the series, published in 1986, the name of the Abbey featured in the book, and the name of an animated TV series based on three of the novels , which first aired in 1999...

series which has a similar genre.

Publication history

Into the Wild was first published as a hardcover by HarperCollins

HarperCollins

on January 9, 2003, in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. The book was released on January 21, 2003, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and in February 2003 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. Into the Wild was released as a paperback in the US on January 6, 2004. On September 4, 2007, the book was released as an eBook, and on Amazon's Kindle

Amazon Kindle

The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...

. The book was one of the first to be in HarperCollins' "Browse Inside" program where twenty percent of the novel is available online. For a limited time, the complete novel was also available online. The paperback version sold 150,637 copies in 2008.

The novel has been released and translated into twenty countries including German, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Korea, China, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Portugal, Hungary, Brazil, Norway and Greece. In Germany. In Germany, the book has also been released as an audiobook. The Chinese version was released on October 31, 2008, with a 3-D card of Firepaw.

Plot

Into the Wild begins with a battle between ThunderClan and RiverClan over Sunningrocks, a strip of land. ThunderClan is outnumbered and their deputy, Redtail, calls a retreat. In ThunderClan territory, the medicine cat, Spottedleaf receives a prophecy from the spirits of their ancestors, StarClan: "Fire alone can save our Clan." The leader, Bluestar says that it is impossible, because fire is feared by all the cats

Rusty, a house cat, runs into a ThunderClan apprentice, Graypaw, in his backyard. Rusty, however, does not run away, but fights back. Soon Bluestar and Lionheart, Graypaw's mentor, having watched the whole thing, invite Rusty to join ThunderClan. Rusty accepts the next day, but is unwelcomed by most of the Clan. Rusty loses his collar after a fight with Longtail, and Bluestar gives Rusty a new name: Firepaw. He forms a strong bond with Graypaw and Ravenpaw, but Firepaw finds out that Tigerclaw, an ambitious member of the Clan, murdered Redtail, and will stop at nothing to attain his goal of becoming Clan leader. Tigerclaw realizes that Ravenpaw might spill his secret, having watched Tigerclaw kill Redtail, so he plans to kill Ravenpaw. To prevent this from happening, Firepaw and Graypaw lead Ravenpaw to a barn where he would be safe and have company, living with a loner named Barley.

Tigerclaw realizes Firepaw knows his secret, but is still trusted by the Clan. ThunderClan gets in a battle with ShadowClan, and ThunderClan is victorious. Having won because of Firepaw, Bluestar gives him his warrior name, Fireheart, along with making Graypaw a warrior, giving him the name Graystripe.

Style

"Into the Wild did occasionally remind me of the Harry Potter books, both in writing style and content. Rusty forms a firm friendship with an apprentice (warrior in training, more than six months old) called Graypaw, a longhaired solid grey tom. Graypaw adds the laughter to what is, when you really think about it, a rather gritty story. This friendship reminded me strongly of Harry on Ron when they first met in the Philosopher’s Stone. Cats such as Bluestar and Yellowfang form the older authority figures. These two characters reminded me of Dumbledore and Snape (though not too closely)."

—A review from Fantasy Book Review comparing Into the Wild and the Harry Potter series

Harry Potter

by J.K. Rowling.

With two authors writing the same novel, Holmes has to "make sure that [the book] “sounds” like Erin, because she has a very distinctive voice". She compares their style to a different language and after all the scripts she gone through, Holmes knows when a sentence of phrase isn't in the right voice. Kate Cary describes the voice as their natural writing style.
The story is told in a third person point of view following the protagonist Firepaw. The narration stays with Firepaw until the next series, Warriors: The New Prophecy, in which the point of view alternates between cats since the authors felt that "we'd really told Firestar's story, and so we wanted to get a fresh viewpoint".

The style of the book has also been compared to the Redwall

Redwall

series by Brian Jacques

Brian Jacques

. The Plain Dealer wrote that the book "is patterned in the style of classics by J.R.R. Tolkien or Brian Jacques". While School Library Journal recommended the book to Redwall fans, the reviewer still felt the style wasn't as elegant.

Lexicon

The book has a lexicon

Lexicon

In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...

with certain different names for foreign objects. A Children's Literature review noted the words "kittypet" and "twoleg" which mean housecat and humans respectively. In the book, instead, of using "said", the Cary uses the word "mewed". This was criticized with the reviewer writing "that 'he mewed', 'she purred', and 'the warrior mewed', which pass for cat talk, grows old fast". In response to a question at the Q&A section of the forum Holmes explained that the names come "in two parts, either or both of which can reflect something about the cat's appearance, personality, or habits". However, they must also be part of the world they know; Holmes originally gave Tigerclaw the name Hammerclaw until one of the editors pointed out the cats wouldn't know what a hammer is. For the names, Kate Cary says that she takes in inspiration for the names from "sight, sounds and scents the cats would experience". At the same time, more names become available as the cat's world becomes more diverse.

Genres

HarperCollins originally requested that Holmes write a "fantasy story on feral cats". Though troubled on what to write about at first, Holmes realized she could add human themes and issues into the book such as "war, politics, revenge, doomed love, religious conflict". An interviewer has described the plot as "Shakespearian: a mad leader, intra-clan betrayal, war, star-crossed lovers, death". Reviews have also called the story an "animal adventure".

The novel was picked to be part of the young adult fantasy genre due to its increasing popularity. Cherith Baldry

Cherith Baldry

Cherith Baldry is a writer of fantasy fiction. She grew up on a farm and worked with house cats. For a while, she took up the job of teaching, but gave up in order to become a full time writer. She currently lives in Reigate, England. Baldry collaborates with Kate Cary, Tui T...

feel that the growth of genre is due to the fact that "fantasy is something very deeply rooted in the human mind, not just for children". Fantasy stories are able to deal with human emotions helping readers to deal with them in the real world. Another Erin Hunter

Erin Hunter

, Kate Cary

Kate Cary

felt that fantasy books such as Harry Potter "is a sign of a deepening need for fantasy to brighten our lives". She describes how as a child she was far less restricted than today's children whose days are structured and scheduled. Cary feels that fantasy stories help kids "escape into the world of the imagination, because it’s the only place they can be really free and un-judged".

Themes

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

noted that themes such as family, friendship and responsibility are also taught in the warrior code, the set of rules that the Clans must follow. Holmes has said that one of her favorite things about writing the series is being able to add in themes that apply to us all such as family, loss, honor, bravery, death, loyalty, and following rules. Other themes include "death and spirituality and family and relationships". She also added in human themes such as "starting at a new school (Rusty joining ThunderClan), falling in love with the wrong person (Graystripe and Silverstream) and being bullied by someone who should look after you (Tigerclaw bullying Fireheart)". To Kirkus Reviews, the human theme of fitting in will be easily found and be applauded when he succeeds.

Another theme found throughout the book is the hardship of life in the wild. Reviews have note how the story does not cover up the hardships of Clan life. School Library Journal

School Library Journal

The School Library Journal is a monthly magazine with articles and reviews for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. Articles cover a wide variety of topics, with a focus on technology and multimedia. Reviews are included for preschool to 4th grade,...

commented on how the story describes the hardships and difficulties of a feral cat's life in detail and how there is no sugarcoating of the violence. Fantasy Book Review also wrote "Erin Hunter does not spare the reader from the grim realities of living in the wild". Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...

noted that doing so shows how the Clans are on the brink of survival.

Critical reception

Into the Wild received generally positive reviews. Booklist

Booklist

thought the novel "spine-tingling" and noted that "the cat characters are true to their feline nature, making this sure to appeal to fans of Clare Bell

Clare Bell

Clare Bell is an author in the U.S. best known for her Ratha series of young adult fantasy novels about prehistoric big cats. These books, also called the Named series, are about intelligent self-aware large cats who have puma, cheetah and lion characteristics, and are based on fossil creatures...

's long-popular Ratha's Creature

Ratha's Creature

Ratha’s Creature is a novel by Clare Bell. First published in 1983 by Atheneum-Argo, Margaret K. McElderry , it is being re-issued in July 2007 by Viking-Penguin's Firebird Books, edited by Sharyn November....

(1983) and its sequels and also to followers of Brian Jacques

Brian Jacques

' ongoing Redwall

Redwall

series." Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

praised the excitement and also added that the book would please any person who "has ever wondered what dreams of grandeur may haunt the family cat". The review also praised the world of the cats and themes put into the book. Although School Library Journal

School Library Journal

thought the book not as well written as the Redwall series, it did note that the novel presented an "intriguing world with an intricate structure". The review also felt that was too many supporting characters, but "there are standouts who give dimension to the tale". The amount of violence was also noted in the review. Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

joked the book would have cat owners look at their pets nervously before writing how Hunter doesn't have "any hint of sentimentality. Snapping bones, flowing blood, and sudden death abundantly demonstrate how these cats walk on the thin edge of survival". The review noted how teens would see how hard it is for Firepaw to fit in. Washington Times notes the tension rising between Tigerclaw and Firepaw and praised the scene where Longtail challenges Firepaw's right to be in the Clan.

Awards and recognitions

Into the Wild claimed third place in the 2006 Young Reader's Choice Award

Young Reader's Choice Award

The Young Reader's Choice Award is an annual book award chosen by students from the Pacific Northwest. It is run by the Pacific Northwest Library Association, and was established in 1940, making it the oldest children's choice award in the U.S. and Canada....

. The novel was listed on Booklist

Booklist

s Top 10 fantasy books for youth in 2003, and was a Book Sense 76 Pick.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.