Seekers (novel series)

Seekers

The cover of The Quest Begins, the first book in the series
The Quest Begins Great Bear Lake Smoke Mountain The Last Wilderness Fire in the Sky Spirits in the Stars Return To The Wild: Island Of Shadows Return To The Wild: The Melting Sea Return To The Wild: River Of Lost Bears Return To The Wild: Forest Of Wolves Return To The Wild: The Burning Horizon Return To The Wild: The Longest Day
Author	Erin Hunter
Cover artist	Wayne McLoughlin
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Teen literature, fantasy
Publisher	HarperCollins
Published	May 2008 – January 6, 2016
Media type	Print

Seekers is a children's novel series written by a team of authors under the pseudonym Erin Hunter, who also wrote the Warriors series. Seekers follows the adventures of four bear cubs: Kallik (a polar bear), Lusa (a black bear), Ujurak (a small grizzly bear who can shape-shift into any animal), and Toklo (also a grizzly bear). Led by Ujurak, the four bears search for a place where they can live in peace without human interference and harassment. The first book The Quest Begins was released on May 27, 2008 and was followed by Great Bear Lake, Smoke Mountain, The Last Wilderness, Fire in the Sky, and Spirits in the Stars, released on February 8, 2011. The series has been well received, with critics praising the realistic behavior of the characters, the excitement in the novels, and the descriptions of the bears' world.

Similarly to the Warriors series, Seekers began as a request from HarperCollins to Victoria Holmes to develop another series about a group of animals, but not cats. Dogs were considered, but rejected because they were too close to cats in their hierarchical social organization, pack and hunting lifestyles, and territoriality. This was expressed by Victoria Holmes later in an online chat, where she stated that she "was reluctant to create stories that... would be quite similar to Warriors. Dogs live in packs, they hunt for their food, they have a strict hierarchy within their communities, they guard their territories". Horses, otters and dolphins were considered, but were dismissed: Holmes felt that horses tended to run away rather than stay and fight, and that dolphin battles would be slow without "the all-action excitement that Erin loves so much". In the end, the company left the decision to Holmes and she opted for bears; in the later author chat she notes that bears "live much more solitary lifestyles than cats, they are wild through and through with no history of domestication whatsoever (performing bears don't count), and they are much bigger animals, with a whole lot more potential for fighting". The series took inspiration from Inuit beliefs and Native American languages. Holmes found that Native Americans and bears are very closely linked to the natural environment. The names of the bears are taken from several different Native American languages. Lusa, for example, means "black" in Choctaw.