Where to Start with Erin Hunter: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Erin Hunter — whether to begin with Warriors Into the Wild, Fire and Ice, or Forest of Secrets. A complete guide to the Warriors cat series.
Erin Hunter is the pen name used by a team of British authors — originally Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, Tui Sutherland, and editor Victoria Holmes — whose Warriors series (beginning 2003) has produced over eighty books about feral cat clans and become one of the best-selling middle-grade fantasy series in publishing history. The Warriors world is a fully realised fantasy universe: the four clans have distinct cultures, histories, traditions, and political relationships; the world has its own mythology (StarClan, the Place of No Stars) and its own moral code (the warrior code); and the series has followed multiple generations of cat protagonists across decades of stories. For readers who encounter it at the right age, it is foundational.
Where to Start: Warriors: Into the Wild (2003)
The essential Erin Hunter — and the beginning of one of middle-grade fiction’s great world-building achievements. Rusty is a domestic cat. He is young, bold, and restless, and he watches the forest outside his garden with a longing he doesn’t understand.
One night he ventures into the forest and encounters Graypaw, a ThunderClan apprentice. Graypaw introduces Rusty to the warrior clans — ThunderClan, ShadowClan, WindClan, and RiverClan — and the warrior code they live by. Rusty is invited to join ThunderClan. He accepts. He is renamed Firepaw.
The novel traces Firepaw’s apprenticeship: learning to hunt, to fight, to navigate the complex politics of clan life, and to understand the warrior code — a code that is strict, demanding, and frequently in tension with the impulses of conscience. The world-building is dense without being inaccessible; the characters are vivid and memorably differentiated; the stakes (clan survival, betrayal, prophecy) escalate rapidly.
The series’ central argument — that belonging to a community requires accepting its costs, and that the code is both what sustains the clans and what can destroy them — is established in this first book and developed across the entire arc.
Warriors: Fire and Ice (2nd in series)
The direct sequel — Firepaw, now Fireheart, navigating the aftermath of Into the Wild and the deepening tensions between the clans. The world expands; the costs of loyalty become clearer.
Warriors: Forest of Secrets (3rd in series)
The third book — Fireheart begins to suspect that the secrets at the heart of ThunderClan are darker than anything he imagined. The series’ first major betrayal; the point at which the narrative depth of the arc becomes fully apparent.
Warriors: Rising Storm (4th in series)
The fourth book — Fireheart as deputy, the clan facing an external catastrophe. The series hits its stride; for readers who have reached this point, the remaining two books follow naturally.
Reading Erin Hunter
Begin with Warriors: Into the Wild and read the original six-book arc (The Prophecies Begin) in order — it is a complete story. After the original arc, later series follow different cat protagonists in the same world; they are best read sequentially if you want to continue.
For the full Erin Hunter bibliography, reviews, and biography, visit the Erin Hunter author page on Editors Reads.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with Erin Hunter?
Warriors: Into the Wild (2003) is the essential starting point — the first book in the original Warriors series, following a domestic cat named Rusty who joins ThunderClan, one of four feral cat clans living in the wild, and discovers that the world of wild cats is far richer and more dangerous than anything he has known. The series was written by a team of authors under the pen name Erin Hunter and has produced over eighty books across multiple sub-series; the original six-book arc (The Prophecies Begin) is the right place to start.
What is the Warriors series about?
The Warriors series follows cat clans — ThunderClan, ShadowClan, WindClan, and RiverClan — who live by a strict warrior code in the forests and fields outside a human town. Each clan has warriors, apprentices, medicine cats, and an elder council; they hunt, fight territorial battles, and follow the guidance of their ancestors (StarClan) through dreams and omens. The series is structured around prophecies, moral dilemmas, and the question of what loyalty to clan demands versus loyalty to individual conscience.
How many Warriors books are there?
There are over eighty Warriors books across multiple series: The Prophecies Begin (6 books), The New Prophecy (6 books), Power of Three (6 books), Omen of the Stars (6 books), Dawn of the Clans (6 books), A Vision of Shadows (6 books), The Broken Code (6 books), A Starless Clan (ongoing), plus numerous super editions, novellas, and manga adaptations. The original six-book series is the essential starting point; later series follow different cat protagonists across the same world.
Are Warriors books only for children?
Warriors was written for middle-grade readers (roughly ages 8–12) but has a substantial crossover readership among teenagers and adults who began the series in childhood and have continued through the many subsequent arcs. The series deals with themes of loyalty, mortality, moral compromise, and war with a directness that earns its older readership; the deaths in Warriors are numerous and not softened. The world-building accumulated across eighty-plus books is genuinely impressive in its scope and internal consistency.
