Erin Hunter answers questions about the series
Erin Hunter's Writing Style
Erin Hunter has a unique writing style because it is created by three or four different people. Although written by different people, all the Warriors books are edited by Victoria Holmes to ensure continuity with other books and to make sure they all have the Erin Hunter feel to them.
The language Erin Hunter uses in her books helps the reader feel as if they are emerged into the life and culture of a warrior clan. She uses a lot of imagery to describe the different cats and their surroundings. She has also created vocabulary used by the clan. For example, a Twoleg is a human, the ThunderPath is a road or highway, and a kittypet is a house cat. In addition, she describes different cat behaviors that are both realistic and personified so that it gives the cats some human qualities the reader can relate to. Students would be able to relate to the friendship developed by Ravenpaw, Graypaw, and Firepaw, and could even compare the characteristics of the cats to similar qualities of their friends. Victoria Homes said:
"I realized I could give them human issues such as starting at a new school (Rusty joining ThunderClan), falling in love with the wrong person (Graystripe and Silverstream), and being bullied by someone who should look after you (Ravenpaw and Tigerclaw). Once I stopped thinking of the series as a "fantasy" and just let the characters take me where they wanted, everything got much easier, and the stories started to tell themselves."
This style appeals to teachers because they can relate the themes, characteristics, and events in the story to the students’ lives and world events. For example, they could relate Yellowfang’s description of Brokenstar’s ability to get other to agree with him, “He always knew how to give a good speech. He could make you believe a mouse was a rabbit if he set his mind to it” (Hunter 205) to world leaders such as how Hitler was able to side Germany against the Jews.
The language Erin Hunter uses in her books helps the reader feel as if they are emerged into the life and culture of a warrior clan. She uses a lot of imagery to describe the different cats and their surroundings. She has also created vocabulary used by the clan. For example, a Twoleg is a human, the ThunderPath is a road or highway, and a kittypet is a house cat. In addition, she describes different cat behaviors that are both realistic and personified so that it gives the cats some human qualities the reader can relate to. Students would be able to relate to the friendship developed by Ravenpaw, Graypaw, and Firepaw, and could even compare the characteristics of the cats to similar qualities of their friends. Victoria Homes said:
"I realized I could give them human issues such as starting at a new school (Rusty joining ThunderClan), falling in love with the wrong person (Graystripe and Silverstream), and being bullied by someone who should look after you (Ravenpaw and Tigerclaw). Once I stopped thinking of the series as a "fantasy" and just let the characters take me where they wanted, everything got much easier, and the stories started to tell themselves."
This style appeals to teachers because they can relate the themes, characteristics, and events in the story to the students’ lives and world events. For example, they could relate Yellowfang’s description of Brokenstar’s ability to get other to agree with him, “He always knew how to give a good speech. He could make you believe a mouse was a rabbit if he set his mind to it” (Hunter 205) to world leaders such as how Hitler was able to side Germany against the Jews.