Warriors : Into the wild (Book 1) By Erin Hunter

This is one of the books that lots of upper elementary and middle schoolers are currently reading. The main character is a young male cat who joins the Thunderclan of wild cats in the forest. He is given the name Firepaw and helps to hunt and protect the borders of their territory from the other three clans. Their "warrior code" teaches responsibility, family, honor and hardships.

With self discovery and a few twists along the way I found this to be an enjoyable read and can see why it is popular. That and it has several other series based off this which gives kids familiar characters and ideas to follow though many books. This is one of those books where quite a few names are thrown at you fairly quickly. It may take your child rereading the first few chapters to keep track of characters. This is not uncommon in books and your children need to know that even adults reread chapters to keep details straight. As you may have noticed, this is a book about cat warriors and has some violence. While frequent, it is not overly detailed or glorified. I did not notice any other real issues such as language or adult situations to be concerned about.

The interest level and reading level is 4th - 8th grade depending on the child. It is worth 10.0 AR points and ATOS Book Level is 5.6.