Moonrise (novel)

Moonrise

First edition cover, Feathertail pictured[1]
Author	Erin Hunter (Cherith Baldry)[2]
Cover artist	Wayne McLoughlin
Language	English
Series	Warriors: The New Prophecy
Genre	Fantasy novel
Publisher	HarperCollins
Publication date	July 21, 2005 (Canada) August 2, 2005 (United States and United Kingdom)
Publication place	Canada United States United Kingdom
Media type	Print (Hardback and Paperback)
Pages	304 (first edition)
ISBN	978-0-06-074452-6
Preceded by	Midnight
Followed by	Dawn

Moonrise is the second book in the series Warriors: The New Prophecy. The book, which follows the adventures of four Clans of wild cats, was written by Cherith Baldry under the pen name of Erin Hunter, with cover art by Wayne McLoughlin. Inspired by the September 11 terrorist attacks, Victoria Holmes, the series creator, wanted to portray religious conflict. Moonrise introduces a new group of cats, the Tribe of Rushing Water, who have a different faith than the Clans. Holmes also drew inspiration from locations such as the New Forest and the Scottish Highlands. 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, who were attacked by a savage mountain lion called Sharptooth. Although reluctant at first, the Clan cats agree to help the Tribe.

Moonrise has been released in hardcover, paperback, and e-book format. Moonrise has also been translated into French, Russian, Chinese, and German. The book received mostly positive reviews from reviewers such as Booklist and Horn Book Review. However, Kirkus Reviews criticized the characters' confusing names and the writing style. Other reviews praised the plot and cliffhanger ending.

Victoria Holmes wanted to portray religious conflict, inspired by the September 11 terrorist attacks. To do this, Holmes introduced the Tribe of Rushing Water, and gave them a different set of ancestors called the Tribe of Endless Hunting, which is similar in concept to, but has different ideals from the Clan cats' StarClan. When meeting, the Clan cats and Tribe cats are distrustful of one another because of these religious differences.^[1] Holmes explained that the book never states whether either group is right about faith, because both are "equally valid". Fear and suspicion arise between the two groups because they are afraid of things they do not understand. According to Holmes, "...Ignorance is a very scary thing!"^[1]

The authors of the series also drew inspiration from several natural locations in the United Kingdom. The four Clans (WindClan, RiverClan, ThunderClan, and ShadowClan) shared a fictional forest based on England's New Forest.^[3] Loch Lomond and the Scottish Highlands are other locations that were influential to the setting of Moonrise.^[4] The authors used Nicholas Culpeper's book Culpeper's Herbal as the basis for the herbal remedies that the cats used in the novel.^[2][5]

Cherith Baldry said that it was hard to write the end of Moonrise and the death of Feathertail.^[6] When asked why the authors kill off characters like Feathertail, Victoria Holmes, the editor, responded: "because deaths are so much fun to write about! Seriously, the essence of all good stories lies in drama and conflict, and what is more dramatic than losing a beloved character?"^[7]

Moonrise was written by Cherith Baldry,^[2] under the pseudonym Erin Hunter because several authors write the Warriors series so that the individual novels in the series would not be shelved in different places in the library. Series creator Victoria Holmes chose the name Erin because she liked the name, and Hunter because it matched the theme of feral cats. It also ensured that the books were shelved near those of Brian Jacques, an author that the writers, collectively known as "the Erins", liked.^[8][3]

Moonrise was published as a hardcover by HarperCollins on July 25, 2005 in Canada,^[9] and August 2, 2005 in the USA and UK.^[10] The book was released as a paperback on July 25, 2006,^[11] and as an e-book on November 6, 2007.^[12] Moonrise was released in Russian on October 18, 2005 by OLMA Media Group,^[13] Japanese on March 18, 2009 by Komine Shoten,^[14] and French on March 5, 2009 by Pocket Jeunesse.^[15] The Chinese version of Moonrise was published on April 1, 2009, by the Morning Star Group. It was packaged with a 3-D trading card depicting Feathertail along with some biographical information on the reverse side.^[16] The German translation was published on February 19, 2011 by Verlagsgruppe Beltz.^[17]

See also: List of Warriors characters

As in the majority of all Warriors novels, there are a great number of characters, an aspect which has been criticised as confusing;^[18][19] in the case of Moonrise, there are 62 characters listed in the allegiances section (the character list found at the beginning of the book). The members of the Tribe of Rushing Water are not listed in the allegiances section; instead, they are introduced during the story itself. The following list includes the most important characters in Moonrise.

• Brambleclaw: Brambleclaw, a dark brown tabby tom warrior with amber eyes from ThunderClan, is the son of Tigerstar and Goldenflower, and brother of Tawnypelt. Throughout Moonrise, Brambleclaw often appears to take charge of the group of travelling cats.
• Crowpaw: Crowpaw, a dark smoky gray (almost black) tom apprentice with blue eyes from WindClan, is the son of Ashfoot.^[20] Crowpaw is often in conflict with the other travelling cats. He and Feathertail grow close, and Crowpaw is devastated by Feathertail's death at the end of the book.
• Feathertail: Feathertail, a light-gray she-cat warrior with blue eyes from RiverClan, is the daughter of Graystripe and Silverstream, and sister to Stormfur. She becomes increasingly close to Crowpaw, and sacrifices her life to protect him and her other friends at the end of the novel, which fulfills a Tribe of Rushing Water prophecy that stated that a silver cat would save them from Sharptooth. She is buried at the base of the Cave of Rushing Water's waterfall, where only the most respected Tribe members are buried.
• Midnight: Midnight is an extremely intelligent female badger, who lives by the sea. She is capable of speaking the languages of badgers, cats, rabbits, and foxes. The journeying cats found her at the end of Midnight, the previous book in the series. She told them that humans would destroy the forest to build a new highway. In Moonrise, she sends the travelling cats though the mountains for their return journey, and it is implied that she did this knowing the Tribe's prophecy regarding the cat who would save them from Sharptooth.
• Sharptooth: Sharptooth is a large mountain cat (resembling a mountain lion) who terrorises the Tribe of Rushing Water, stealing their prey and killing their members. He is eventually killed when Feathertail causes a stalactite to fall on him, piercing his throat.
• Squirrelpaw: Squirrelpaw, a ginger she-cat apprentice with green eyes from ThunderClan, is the daughter of Firestar and Sandstorm, and sister of Leafpaw. She and Leafpaw have a telepathic relationship and can feel each other's emotions. She comes up with the plan to poison Sharptooth using a hare stuffed with deathberries.
• Stormfur: Stormfur, a dark gray tom warrior with amber eyes from RiverClan, is the son of Graystripe and Silverstream, and brother to Feathertail. When the Clan cats first encounters the Tribe, it was thought that he was the silver cat in their prophecy. Because of this, the Tribe refuses to let him leave until he has saved them from Sharptooth.
• Tawnypelt: Tawnypelt, a tortoiseshell she-cat warrior with green eyes from ShadowClan, is the daughter of Tigerstar and Goldenflower, and sister of Brambleclaw.
• Teller of the Pointed Stones: Teller of the Pointed Stones, more commonly known as Stoneteller, is a brown tabby tom with amber eyes.^[21] He is the Tribe of Rushing Water's Healer, a position similar to leader and medicine cat of a Clan combined. He prophecises that a silver cat not from the Tribe will kill Sharptooth. When the journeying cats arrive, Stoneteller, believing Stormfur is the silver cat, forces him to stay until Sharptooth dies.

Moonrise takes place in several natural locations, inspired by similar locales in the United Kingdom, such as the New Forest. The forest in which the cats live consists of a forest, a moor, a marsh, and a disused mine, just west of a town. These, with the exception of the mine, were based largely on the New Forest. The story also takes place by the ocean, and in a fictitious mountain range, all of which is located west of the forest.

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 along 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 because humans were going to cut down the forest and build a new highway.

On the return journey, the Clan cats decide 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 friendly Tribe takes the travelling cats in and gives them food and shelter. The Clan cats discover that the Tribe cats have their own prophecy: A silver cat will save them from Sharptooth, a savage lion-like creature 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. Although reluctant at first, 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, and Feathertail jumps up to the roof of the cave onto a stalactite to save Crowpaw from being killed. She plummets to the floor with the spike, falling on and crushing Sharptooth. Feathertail is also killed by the impact. The Tribe then realizes that Feathertail was the silver cat in their prophecy, not her brother Stormfur, as they had previously thought. Feathertail is buried at the base of the Cave of Rushing Water's waterfall, where only the most honored Tribe cats are buried. The five remaining cats then continue traveling back home. The book ends with Squirrelpaw noticing Highstones, which is at the edge of WindClan territory, meaning that they are almost home. Moonrise is followed by Dawn.

Moonrise received mostly positive reviews from critics. Kirkus Reviews criticized the novel for mundane writing, easy-to-confuse names, and the use of the words "meowed" and "mewed" instead of "said". The reviewer thought that the plot was "marred by the same preciousness of its predecessor". However, he praised the plot for its "enhanced complexity" and suspenseful writing, saying that "a small plot twist is refreshing and suspense builds steadily towards the final installment". ^[22] Booklist praised Moonrise for its "cliffhanger" ending "that will leave readers eager for the next installment", as well as the suspenseful possibility of the destruction of the forest.^[22] Horn Book Review gave a positive review, praising the plot, characters, and writing.^[22] BookLoons also gave Moonrise a positive review, calling it "exciting" and a "gripping epic".^[23] Moonrise reached the New York Times bestseller list, holding the number two spot for two weeks.^[24]

• The official Warriors website