Warriors (Super Edition) 12 – Squirrelflight’s Hope

Erin Hunter's Squirrelflight's Hope is a warrior cat story for 10 year olds about a deputy who disagrees with her own leader.

What happens

Start here and you'll be lost, so it's worth saying first. This one sits a long way into the Warriors books, after the Vision of Shadows run, and it assumes you already know the Clans, the borders and who is who.

For a reader who is in, though, it's a treat, because it hands the story to Squirrelflight.

She's ThunderClan's deputy now. Three moons ago the Clans redrew their borders to make room for SkyClan, and the peace since then has been so quiet that Bramblestar suspects it's too good to be true.

Out on patrol she finds her own warriors won't cross the stream onto the new land. ThunderClan cats hunt in the forest, they tell her, because that's how it has always been. She makes them mark the border anyway.

Then the leaders call a night meeting with no full moon, and it turns out the other Clans have been talking about SkyClan behind SkyClan's back.

What makes the book work is how much of it is quiet. Squirrelflight walking to the island with Bramblestar, remembering sneaking out of camp when they were young. Squirrelflight raising the subject of another litter of kits and getting an "Of course" that doesn't look at her.

She's the deputy, so she has to back her leader. She's also the one who can see what he's missing. That tension sits under every scene she's in.

There's a prologue that will ache if you know these cats. She and Leafpaw as brand new apprentices, promising each other that nothing will ever drive them apart.

Warriors books don't tiptoe around death and this one is no exception. A young warrior's mentor was killed by an owl the moon before the story starts. Another Clan has just held a vigil. Squirrelflight thinks about the two kits of hers who died, Juniperkit and Dandelionkit, and about the litter she and Bramblestar haven't managed to have.

None of it is gory. It is sad, and it's the grown-up kind of sad, about the babies you wanted and didn't get. Readers who come to these books for battles may find this one slower going. Readers who love the cats will feel the difference in it.

What to read next

If your reader is new to the Clans, don't hand them this. Into the Wild is where the whole thing begins, with a kitchen cat called Rusty who keeps dreaming about the forest.