GREGOR THE OVERLANDER by Suzanne Collins
If you are one of those people who believes that there must be a colony of gargantuan rats and cockroaches living under the streets of New York City, consider your paranoid fears vindicated. When Gregor’s baby sister crawls into an air vent in the basement of their apartment building, he follows her down a long dark chute and into the Underland. Fortunately, they are found by the friendly giant cockroaches and not the malicious six-foot-tall rats. The cockroaches bring them to the city of the Underland humans. There, Gregor learns that his father who disappeared two years earlier fell down the same chute and ended up prisoner of the rats. He also learns that he himself may be the warrior hero mentioned in an ancient Underland prophecy. Together with the snobby young Underlander queen and her insufferable cousin, two loyal bats, two kind cockroaches, and the snarky, bitter traitor rat, Ripred, Gregor and his baby sister set off on a quest to save the Underland human race from destruction.
This is definitely one of my favorite children’s fantasy series. The overall tone of the book is somewhat dark but also incredibly humorous. Collins also uses the series to challenge some of the notions of right vs. wrong and heroism vs. barbarism that are often taken for granted in heroic fantasy literature. And she is simply an excellent writer. If you enjoyed the Harry Potter series, the Percy Jackson series, or Suzanne Collins’ other series, The Hunger Games, you should check out this book! There are four subsequent books in the series: Gregor and the Prophecy of the Bane, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Gregor and the Marks of Secret, and Gregor and the Code of Claw. Personally, I think they get even better, the farther you get into the series!
Susan the Librarian 