Gregor the Overlander

By: Suzanne Collins
Location: FIC COL
Genre: Fantasy and Collins

Cockroaches, we have a few in the library, I hate it when I lift something and there it is. Big, brown, scathing and unkillable. I yell at the cleaner if she is in, and she then attacks it with the vacuum cleaner -  sucked in!
Rats and mice- I must confess we also have a pet mouse in the library, I call it "LitRATure" or Litty for short. Every morning he leaves me a present of tiny licorice logs, the caretaker wants to leave Litty a present of peanut butter.
In the daylight I can handle Litty and the roaches, but if I was underground, in another world and they were four feet tall and could speak- yeah- na!!!
 In this first book of the Underland Chronicles by the writer of the Hunger Games we see Gregor, an eleven year old boy and his two year old sister Boots get sucked from the laundry room in their New York apartment building into The Underland. The Underland has regular-ish humans, along with giant bats, roaches, rats, and spiders. According to an Underland prophecy, Gregor is the one who will lead them in their battle against the rats. Gregor's only goal is to retrieve his father, who fell down the hole two plus years ago and is now the rats' prisoner.  The speaking huge cockroaches enters the story here and it really rocks along.
 There are lots of great characters in the story. The wise elders. The snooty queen-in-training. The giant cockroaches, Tick and Temp. Yes, wonderful, loyal, sweet cockroaches. The giant rat Ripred. is he a spy, a traitor, should they trust him, do they have any choice?
Of course there's Gregor, who learns the obligatory lessons about himself and the world around him. But best of all is Boots. She greets everything in her life with joy. She has no fear. No prejudices. She treats everyone equally, teaching just about everyone a thing or two.  Everyone loves Boots!
This is a great story, it does not have the hype of its famous cousins by the same author, but most reviews reckon it is a better yarn....
Time for me to go home now and let Litty visit my desk....