Warrior's Return (Warriors Manga Series #3) »

Erin Hunter is the nom de plume of three British writers who create enthralling, animal-centric YA fantasies in the tradition of Brian Jacques's Redwall books.

Graystripe and Millie have finally found ThunderClan's old territory, but Twoleg monsters have devastated the forest and Graystripe fears that all of his Clanmates have been killed or captured by Twolegs. Millie insists that they keep looking, and an old friend helps point the two cats on the path that the Clans followed many moons ago.

But danger still lurks around every turn, and Graystripe worries that he and Millie are lost on an impossible journey.

Children's Literature

In the tradition of Redwall, Warriors takes the concept of a kingdom of animals and turns it into a fascinating saga of cats that have formed their own forest clans away from human society. Having proven itself as a bestselling middle grade series, "Warriors" has since been spun off into several original English language manga books including Warrior's Return, the final installment in the "Graystripe Trilogy." In the story, Graystripe, a warrior cat from ThunderClan, has escaped from a family of "Twolegs" (humans) who took him from his forest and attempted to turn him into a "kittypet" (housecat). Together with former kittypet Millie, Graystripe returns to the forest but discovers it has been destroyed by Twoleg loggers and abandoned by his Clanmates. With the help of a barncat, Graystripe gets pointed in the direction of his clan, but discovers he must journey through Twoleg territory to reach his Clanmates, braving Twolegs, cars and hostile cats in the process. Barry's art shows an excellent use of perspective, with every scene drawn from a cat's point of view. While most books in the "Warriors" series follow the adventures of several cats, Warrior's Return focuses on a single character, allowing Jolley to flesh out Graystripe's aggressive personality and prejudices toward Twolegs. Interested readers should check out other "Warriors" series including Warriors, Warriors: The New Prophecy, Warriors: The Power of Three, and Warriors: The Fourth Apprentice, which continue the saga in prose form. Reviewer: Michael Jung