Bibliographical information: 

Collins, Suzanne. Gregor the Overlander. New York: Scholastic, 2003. (Book 1 of the Underland Chronicles)

Brief summary:

Gregor lives in New York City with his mother, his grandmother, and his two sisters. Since his father's disappearance a few years earlier, Gregor's family has been having a very tough time. While Gregor is doing laundry, his two-year-old sister falls through a vent. He follows her, and the two find themselves in the Underland, a strange underground world populated by pale-skinned humans and giant bats, rats, cockroaches, and spiders. Gregor is received as the Warrior, and sets off with a multi-species company on a quest to rescue his father and save the Underland.

Comments:

Suzanne Collins says that she got the idea for this book when she was reading the Alice books to her kids and started thinking about what they would find if they went through a rabbit hole in New York City. I'm pretty squeamish about bugs and rodents, so when my husband came home with this book for our daughter, I was pretty skeptical. But it's actually surprisingly charming. My daughter loves the series, and it has turned several of her friends on to reading.

Grade/Age level:

Grades two to six.

Cautions:

Though the book has an anti-war and anti-violence message, there's quite a lot of violence and bloodshed along the way. The bloodiest deaths involve roaches, rats, and other animals, but humans are killed and injured as well.

--Lisa Gordis

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