Moonrise (novel) facts for kids
First edition cover
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| Author | Erin Hunter |
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| Cover artist | Wayne McLoughlin |
| Country | Canada United States United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Warriors: The New Prophecy |
| Genre | Children's literature Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
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Publication date
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21 July 2005 (Canada) 2 August 2005 (United States and United Kingdom) |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback)/On-line (E-book) |
| Pages | 304 (first edition) |
| ISBN | 978-0-06-074452-6 |
| LC Class | PZ7.H916625Mo 2005 |
| Preceded by | Midnight |
| Followed by | Dawn |
Moonrise is a children's fantasy novel, the second book in the Warriors: The New Prophecy series. The book, which illustrates the adventures of four groups of wild cats (called Clans), was written by Erin Hunter (a pseudonym used by Victoria Holmes, Cherith Baldry, Kate Cary, and Tui T. Sutherland), with cover art by Wayne McLoughlin. Moonrise follows six cats, Brambleclaw, Squirrelpaw, Crowpaw, Feathertail, Stormfur, and Tawnypelt, as they return to their forest home from a journey to the ocean. They travel through the mountains, where they meet the Tribe of Rushing Water, a new group of cats first introduced in this novel. The Tribe cats are being attacked by a savage mountain lion called Sharptooth. The Clan cats eventually agree to help the Tribe get rid of Sharptooth. Series editor Victoria Holmes drew inspiration from locations such as the New Forest and the Scottish Highlands.
Moonrise has been released in hardcover, paperback, and e-book formats, and has been translated into French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German and Polish. The book received mostly positive comments from reviews published in Booklist and Horn Book Review, which praised the plot and cliffhanger ending. However, a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews criticized the characters' confusing names and the writing style. Moonrise held the number two spot on The New York Times Best Seller list for children's chapter books for two weeks.
Synopsis
Setting and characters
Moonrise takes place in several locations inspired by similar locales in the United Kingdom. With the exception of a disused mine, the forest in which the cats live is based largely on the New Forest. In addition, parts of the story take place by the ocean and in a fictitious mountain range.
The main characters each come from one of four Clans: ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan. These main characters are known as Brambleclaw, Squirrelpaw, Tawnypelt, Crowpaw, Stormfur and Feathertail. All Clan cats share a belief in StarClan, a group of spirits usually represented by the stars, who are their ancestors and provide them with guidance. The Clans also follow identical hierarchy structures: Clans each have one leader, a deputy who is second-in-command, and a medicine cat who heals their Clanmates in addition to communicating with StarClan. The bulk of each Clan consists of warriors, who carry out hunting for food, patrol borders, and fight battles when they occur. Apprentices are younger cats who are in training to become warriors, or more rarely, medicine cats.
Plot
In the previous book in the series, Midnight, StarClan, the warrior cats' ancestors, sent four cats (one from each Clan—Brambleclaw, Crowpaw, Feathertail, and Tawnypelt) on a quest. Squirrelpaw and Stormfur went with them. At the end of their journey, they arrived at the ocean and found an unusually intelligent badger named Midnight. Midnight told the cats that the Clans would have to leave their forest home and find a new place to live, as humans were going to cut down the forest and build a new "Thunderpath" (the cats' word for a road).
On the return journey, the Clan cats decide, after consultation with Midnight, to go through a mountain range which they had avoided in their initial travels. There, they meet a Clan-like group of cats called the Tribe of Rushing Water, who have their own set of ancestors: the Tribe of Endless Hunting. The Tribe takes the traveling cats in and gives them food and shelter. The Clan cats discover that the Tribe cats have a prophecy: a silver cat will save them from Sharptooth, a mountain lion that has been killing many members of the Tribe. The Tribe thinks that Stormfur is the silver cat from the prophecy, and he is therefore expected to protect the Tribe from Sharptooth. Stormfur eventually agrees to help the Tribe.
Together, the Clan cats succeed in leading Sharptooth into a trap in a cave. However, their plan to poison Sharptooth goes awry, as he swats the rabbit they used to bait him aside and goes after Crowpaw instead. Brambleclaw knows that they can't end their journey if the cat from WindClan is killed. Feathertail stares at the situation before turning to Stormfur, telling him this was for her to do not him. Without hesitation, she jumps up to the roof of the cave onto a stalactite, causing it to fall. Both Feathertail and Sharptooth are killed by the impact. Crowpaw and Stormfur are distraught and upset at the loss of their friend and Clanmate. The Tribe then realizes that Feathertail was the silver cat in their prophecy, not her brother Stormfur, as they had previously thought. The five remaining cats then continue their journey. The book ends with Squirrelpaw noticing Highstones, which is at the edge of WindClan territory; they are almost home.
Meanwhile, back in the forest, the Clans begin to experience the effects of the humans' intrusion into their territories, including lost and poisoned prey, destruction of the forest and cats being abducted.
Moonrise is followed by Dawn, which details the events following the questing cats' return to the forest, and their subsequent journey to find a new home.
