The Hunger Games

Collins, S. (2008). The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic Press.

Summary

Panem is a nation that that has risen from the ruins of a North America destroyed by natural disasters and wars. At its beginning, it was made up of one Capitol that controlled thirteen districts, each responsible for a specific industry like technology, agriculture, or textiles. Then came the Dark Days: the districts rebelled against the Capitol and almost won, until the Capitol obliterated District 13 and regained its oppressive control of the remaining districts. The Hunger Games are an annual "celebration" that all the citizens of Panem are forced to watch. To remind the districts of the Capitol's total control over them (as if they could forget), each district is forced to hold a lottery to choose one boy and one girl tribute to send to the Games. After the twenty-four tributes are paraded through the Capitol and celebrated by the bizarre looking humans who live there, they are thrown into the arena and the games begin. The rules are simple: use whatever skills you have to survive, and whatever weapons you can find to kill the other tributes, for the last tribute alive is crowned the victor. And the whole thing is televised to the entire country. Katniss Everdeen, like all twelve to eighteen year olds in District 12, dreads the annual reaping with fear that she might be chosen. However this year, a nightmare she never considered happens: her twelve-year-old sister, Prim, is chosen in the reaping. Frantic with fear at the thought of her little sister in the arena, Katniss volunteers to take her place in the Games, even though she knows this means she will certainly never return home alive. Even though she is forced to play along with the Capitol and their Games, Katniss is not a girl to go down without a fight. She becomes known as "the girl on fire" and ignites a spirit across the districts she never dreamed possible.

Worth a bookmark?

The Hunger Games is truly one of the best books I have ever read, yet it is so different than books I usually fall in love with! It is fast paced, suspenseful, and heart-wrenching. Katniss Everdeen is a dynamic character who is far from perfect, but fights to survive while doing the right thing, even though it means personal danger. Readers empathize with her as she struggles with conflicting emotions and decisions that could literally mean the difference between life and death. I don't think you'll need a bookmark for this book, because you won't be able to put it down!

This first book in the trilogy introduces the characters and setting, as well as showing the reader issues with an tyrannical government from the perspective of its suffering citizens that are further developed in the next books.

In my library…

This book and the series are great for booktalks to get kids excited about books. I have also come across an activity designed by a librarian in Colorado that recreated the Hunger Games combined with a food drive. Here is a link to information and pictures of this activity that got kids begging for this book! http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=331908

Reviews

Brilliantly plotted and perfectly paced…a futuristic novel every bit as good and as allegorically rich as Scott Westerfeld's Uglies books…the considerable strength of the novel comes in Collins's convincingly detailed world-building and her memorably complex and fascinating heroine. In fact, by not calling attention to itself, the text disappears in the way a good font does: nothing stands between Katniss and the reader, between Panem and America. This makes for an exhilarating narrative and a future we can fear and believe in, but it also allows us to see the similarities between Katniss's world and ours. (The New York Times—John Green)