She could not put this book down - and she is a self-admitted nonreader. Oh, she helped me prepare the turkey, peeled potatoes, prepared all other goodies, set the table, did the dishes, ate pie, and she got up now and then to check on her kids. But when she wasn't doing all that, she had her nose stuck in this book. Since I am a voracious reader, I had to check it out.
I read the book. And then I read it again this past week because I couldn't remember the book after having seen the movie.
It was a page turner even the second time. I would say that I appreciated it even more the second time because I wasn't racing to know the ending. I could really appreciate Suzanne Collins' description of Katniss's (the heroine) hunger, her thirst, her anger, intense love of family, fear, frustration, conflicted emotions about her love interests, and sometimes apathy. I gained a real appreciation for just how hungry Katniss and most of her people were and how that hunger can affect everything.
It's another dystopic society story and I loved it. It goes like this:
Katniss Everdeen is a seventeen year old living in District 12 of Panem, a land where the United States existed long ago before natural disasters and strife changed everything. In order to keep its people from rebelling, the Capitol of Panem has organized the land and its people into 12 districts. The shining Capitol, or seat of government, gluts itself on the labors of the oppressed people who comprise the 12 Districts.
In order to keep the districts in line and to control them using fear, the Capitol holds an annual Hunger Games in which two children from each District are selected to compete every year. The children are placed in a simulated wilderness and must fight to the death, providing entertainment for the people of the Capitol. At the end of the Games, there is only one living champion.
When her sister is selected to compete, Katniss volunteers as her District's female player in the Annual 74th Hunger Games to save her beloved younger sister from certain death. As Katniss fights to survive in the Games, she must let her will to live overcome her repulsion of murdering the other players.
As the Games progress, Katniss's anger heightens towards those in the Capitol who use the kids' precious lives as a form of entertainment. The very skills she developed in order to survive all those years in District 12, the place that was meant to oppress her and keep her in her "place", are the skills that help her beat the Game. In the end, she shows the Gamemakers and the leaders in the Capitol that she is smarter than them all.
My first reading of the book years ago caused me to think that Katniss was a little unemotional for someone in her plight. She is poor, hungry, scared, self sufficient, angry, and desperate. But even with all of this, sometimes she doesn't seem to feel much.
The second time I read the book, I had a completely different impression. Were the District people so beaten down with hardship that they were all a little numb like Katniss? As I read the book again, I realized that Katniss is emotional, she just had to suppress it in order to survive.
There are some prominent themes throughout the book: sacrifice, inequality of rich and poor, propaganda, government control, friendship, and family.
The book is written in first person, present tense. To me, this adds to the suspense. The book includes the violence of young people fighting to the death - this is bloody and horrifying.
Teenagers will love this book, if they are some of the few who haven't read it already. And it's just the kind of book that teachers can use in the classroom to pique the interest of students who don't like to read.
The New York Times Learning Network suggest the following ideas for incorporating The Hunger Games into a reading or English curriculum:
In how many ways are the Hunger Games of the novels and today’s reality shows similar? Do you recognize some of your own reactions when you watch elimination games like “Survivor” or “American Idol” in the reactions of viewers to the Hunger Games? (As Charles McGrath put it in an essay about the wide appeal of this trilogy, “We like for there to be winners, but even more we love for there to be losers, as long as they’re not us.”)
How is reality TV changing our world? Why do we like reality shows so much? In general, do you think your generation is significantly more desensitized to violence because of the availability of violent images on television and the Internet?
As a thought experiment, try choosing a real person participating in a reality TV elimination game and write an imagined diary entry that tells, Katniss-style, how he or she really feels about the contest.
Many readers — and perhaps all English teachers — see strong echoes of other dystopian literature in “The Hunger Games,” whether classroom staples like Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” and novels like “1984,” “Brave New World,” “Farenheit 451″ and “Lord of the Flies,” or contemporary fiction like Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale.”
One obvious idea: an essay or infographic comparing “The Hunger Games” with one or more of these other works. Less obvious ideas: A student-created library display headlined “If You Liked ‘The Hunger Games,’ You’ll Love…” with student-created book jackets advertising both classics and current young-adult and adult fiction with similar themes; or a school-wide dystopian fiction trivia game.
Ideas retrieved from: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/the-odds-ever-in-your-favor-ideas-and-resources-for-teaching-the-hunger-games/?_r=0
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