Gregor the Overlander

Suzanne Collins, Gregor the Overlander, Book one of the Underland Chronicles. new York: Scholastic, 2003. 311 pages. ISBN: 978-0-439-678131.

Before publishing the Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins published a popular series, The Underland Chronicles. Gregor the Overlander is the first volume in this five book series. Gregor and his sister Boots live in New York City. One unsuspecting day they fall through a grate in the laundry room. They fall into an underland world of humans, spiders, rats, spiders, and other creatures. It turns out that there is a prophecy that a overlander would one day come to the underland and take a quest that will save the underland world.

This reviewer enjoyed the Hunger Games, but he did not know if he would enjoy the earlier series published by Collins. He was happily surprised. Gregor the Overlander is an exciting adventure story that will bring much enjoyment to the reader. It reminds one of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. It seems that it would have been the kind of book that C. S. Lewis would enjoy reading.

Gregor the Overlander would make a good read-aloud. I read it to my family and they thoroughly enjoyed it. It is the type of book that will grab your attention from the beginning and keep it to the end. We are now reading Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, the second volume in the series.