Author: Suzanne Collins
Genre: Science Fiction (Dystopian)
Major Awards: New York Times Notable Children's Book; ALA Notable Children's Book, CCBC Choices
Age Group: 6th - 12th
Summary: Katniss Everdeen lives in Panem, which is divided into 12 districts. In these districts, they compete with one another in what is called the Hunger Games. Before the games start, a girl and a boy are elected to represent each of the district in the worldwide televised event. All of the tributes must fight one another and survive until there is one victor remaining in just one of the districts. Flashback a couple hours before and Katniss Everdeen wakes up on this day with her mom, younger sister, and neighbors.Her sister, Primrose Everdeen, gets selected as one of the tributes and Katniss volunteers in her place because she doesn't want her sister to get injured. Katniss struggles while she prepares for the games, earning people's support, and surviving just with her hunting skills compared to other people's ways of fighting. Her main goal is wanting to make it back home alive to make her sister proud. The Hunger Games lasts for eighteen days and through that Katniss experiences a lot of attention, glitz, and glamour along with some gruesome, traumatizing events of deaths and killing tributes from other districts, some done by herself. By the end of the Hunger Games, Katniss learns a lot of skills and eventually survives with the other male tribute from district 12, Peeta Mellark. Both of them declare to the televised audience that neither one of them will kill the other, resulting in Katniss pulling out poison berries for them to eat and die together. In the end, they reach the end together and they are both announced victors of the Hunger Games. They ride the train back home to district 12 and start their normal life together back where it all began.
Evaluation & Comments: First off, I would like to say I do not think this book is suitable for elementary children. With all the violence and gruesome scenes included in this book, I would prefer to use it in more upper level grades like middle school and high school so they don't get as shocked compared to younger children. As a kid when this first came out, I actually watched the movie and liked it so much that I wanted to read the book, so I bought the whole series. I loved seeing Katniss' growth as a person and her skills develop throughout the Hunger Games and seeing how she was able to, despite the government ruling system, made her way of life and created relationships her own way.
Like I said above, I would probably use the Hunger Games for older students. While I distribute the books, I would also give them a set of study questions so that they could be looking for stuff and ideas while they are reading, other than their own thoughts as well of course! I know it might sound boring, but those questions would be used for class discussions and I wanted my students to be prepared and aware of what was going on. Another idea could be to put the students into book clubs and record videos of their discussions. I would give them topics and questions that I want them to answer by the end of the video, things that they should learn so that I have achieved my goal with this book.
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