Warriors Cats: How I spent my childhood

If you haven’t heard of Warriors, let me enlighten you.

it’s a gigantic series about cats. Not your everyday house cats, but fierce, loyal, and occasionally ruthless and genocidal clan cats navigating life, loyalty, and some shockingly intense battles. Actually, scratch that (haha see what i did there?), it’s not just one series, it’s seven now. Yes, seven.

I first stumbled upon Warriors back in 2013 during what 8 year old me would have described as an intense and important Nerf battle with my older brother. Foam darts flying, adrenaline pumping, and little me, sprinting upstairs for cover. I threw myself into a room, I can’t recall what kind, maybe a spare bedroom or something, but nonetheless in it was a bookshelf.

For the first few minutes, I stayed laser focused, Nerf Retaliator aimed at the doorway, waiting for my brother to strike. But then… boredom crept in. So, I did what any kid would do and grabbed a random book off the shelf. That book was Warriors: Into the Wild.

I didn’t get far, maybe about 30 pages or so before setting it back on the shelf. For the record, I don’t remember who won that battle. Probably my older brother, who took a sadistic joy in absolutely obliterating me at everything we did as kids.

A few months later, with nothing better to do in rural Vermont, I picked that book back up. And this time it stuck for good. For the next four or five years, Warriors completely consumed my life.

Maybe it was the drama of the clans, the cutthroat rivalries, or that one scene where a cat’s stomach gets ripped in half and his guts spill out (don’t feel bad he deserved it). Or maybe it was just the fact that books were my only form of entertainment as a kid. Either way, I devoured five series and over 40 books before life and school reading assignments caught up with me.

School books killed my love of reading for a while. They made it feel like a chore, and for years, I stayed away from pretty much any book. But recently, nostalgia hit me, and I had to revisit Warriors. I picked up the first series, I was expecting to realize that warriors was not as good as I remembered it as a kid.

Boy, was I wrong.

Not only did the series hold up, but it was about as good as I remembered. I was so hooked that I breezed through the first series and dove straight into the second, which I’m still reading now. It turns out 8-year-old me had phenomenal taste.

Do yourself a favor and revisit something that consumed your life as a kid, its worth it.