Moth Flight is young, a kitten on the verge of cat-hood. She seems unable to do anything properly and this is a source of great aggravation to her mother, the leader of the Wind Clan. She is sent to hunt, and instead finds herself distracted by interesting plants and wondering what uses they might have. She goes off on what turns out to be a vision quest, and is spoken to by the spirits of cats passed on already: she, and a cat in each of the other Clans, is to learn to use herbs and heal and become Medicine Cats. She returns to tell this tale, and it’s greeted with a fair bit of antagonism- peace between the Clans has been sorely won, the clans don’t mix or visit, and most are not willing to test that peace. Most, that is, except for the young cats chosen to learn healing- they all have a natural bent for it. The project of all of the ‘interns’ going from Clan to Clan to learn all they can from each other takes off, despite border skirmishes. But not all the cats want peace, and some have grudges that could cause real trouble. The feral cats have all the traits of real cats, and also the ability to reason and communicate like humans (who they avoid- to call someone a ‘kittypet’ is a big insult!).

I didn’t realize when I picked this book up that it was part of a series- it seems to be part of a ‘prequel’ series for the Warrior Clans. I’m not sure how many are in the series, but it’s a LOT. I enjoyed the book; the cats have personalities that are fairly well drawn. It is a children’s series, but there is some violence, death, and the book is very sad in places. Not that I feel those things have to be removed from books for children; just a warning. Not sure if I’ll pick up any more books from the series or not- I suspect that if I see one at the library, I’ll bring it home, but I probably won’t hunt for them. In other words, good, but not fantastic to an adult. I would have loved it as a kid. ( )