Gregor the Overlander

Gregor the Overlander is the first of a five-book series, The Underland Chronicles, about Gregor and his visits to the mysterious Underland. The author, Suzanne Collins, is also well known for her work on Nickelodeon, including television shows Clarissa Explains it All and the Mysteries of Shelby Woo. After finishing The Underland Chronicles, Suzanne Collins went on to write the international Bestseller The Hunger Games, which was later made into four successful motion pictures. Gregor the Overlander was Suzanne Collins’s first novel, published by Scholastic in 2003. 

The fantasy novel follows young protagonist, Gregor, who travels with his little sister, Boots, to a subterranean society. There, the vermin of the human world grow as big and as sentient as humans. Gregor meets the queen of the “Underland” human faction, Luxa, and gets roped into a prophecy which holds that two “Overlanders,” or humans from Gregor’s world, will team up with 10 “Underlanders” to save Gregor’s father from giant rats. Gregor and Boots join Luxa, her cousin, Henry, and a cast of friendly vermin to fulfill the prophecy.

Plot Summary

The novel begins at Gregor and Boots’ apartment in New York City. Gregor, age 11, is helping Boots do laundry. Boots, only two years old, accidentally falls through an open grate in the floor of the laundry room. Gregor rushes to save her, squeezing through the vent. He falls a long distance, landing in an underground world called the Underland. This forgotten world is home to societies of inordinately large spiders, rats, bats, and cockroaches, as well as a number of humans, who discovered the land in the 1600s and founded a colony. The colony originated when an immigrant Stonemason from England, who was anticipating an apocalypse on the surface world and led his devout followers underground. Gregor learns that the vent in his laundry room is one of the only surviving tunnels to the Underland.

When they land in the Underland, a group of huge cockroaches approaches the children. Convinced that Gregor is the human spoken of in a prophecy, the cockroaches take the children into the human city of Regalia. There, Gregor meets Luxa, who is slated to become Regalia’s queen when she comes of age, and her cousins, Henry and Nerissa. Gregor quickly dislikes Henry and Luxa, who appear unfriendly and hostile to their arrival.

Gregor learns more about the Prophecy of Gray, which told of his arrival. The prophecy claims that two Overlanders, who may be himself and Boots, will team up with 10 Underlanders to find his father. Initially doubtful that they are the chosen “questers,” as soon as they learn that their father may be alive, Gregor and Boots resolve to make the journey. They join forces with two cockroaches named Tick and Temp; two spiders, Treflex and Gox; two Underlander humans, Henry and Luxa; and a rat, Ripred.

As they journey through caverns outside of Regalia to the rat King Gorger’s cave, they are beset by many foes. Treflex dies shortly after joining the quest, having fought with rats. At one point, pursuing rats nearly kill Boots, but Tick sacrifices her life to rescue her. 

Eventually, the group reaches the cave of King Gorger. King Gorger sends out an army of vicious rats that hugely outnumbers them. They realize that King Gorger expected them, and Henry has been the King’s double agent all along. Knowing that King Gorger wants to destroy him to foil the prophecy, Gregor leaps into the canyon inside King Gorger’s cave. The pursuing rats and Henry follow him on a rockslide. Ares, Henry’s bat who is bound to protect him, refuses to save him, picking up Gregor instead. Ares flies him to his father, and they return together to Regalia. As the novel ends, Gregor, Boots, and their father reunite with Gregor’s mother in Overland. 

The novel explores themes like Strength in Differences and champions equality among the varied Underland species. The epic of Gregor the Overlander continues in its sequel, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane.