Publisher: Scholastic Inc., New York (2008)
Genre: Adventure
This is a story about a girl named Katniss who is in the farthest district from the capital city. The land she lives on is what used to be known as North America, and the further you get away from the capital the poorer it gets. She provides food for her family by hunting in the forbidden woods. The government has an annual event each year which is known as the Hunger Games, and this is a game of survival. The point of the game is to kill all the other opponents and survive until the end and live a life of luxury. Katniss must throw her name into the competition after her sisters name is pulled from the lottery. She will have to use her charm and hunting skills to some how survive and return to her family.
This is a story I really enjoyed, and I would have to say that it is one of my favorite books. With that being said it seems a little grotesque that the story is about kids killing other kids. I loved the flow of the book and it always kept you guessing. The character development was well done because you really got to know Katniss, and for me often times in the book I felt like I was her. It felt like I could feel what she felt. This is a sign of a good author in my opinion, but then on the other side of that there were parts that kind of disturbed me and I am in college so sometimes I can see how this would be way to disturbing for some students. The language in this book can be hard to understand at times, and that's why I think it would be better as a middle school read. Also, from a social development standpoint I think it would be hard to read this book in elementary because it is also a love story, and most elementary students aren't ready for that type of literature.The one thing I love about this book is its strong themes in comparison to today's world. I would love to use this book in a middle school classroom to talk about serious issues like war, homelessness, killing, violence, glory, etc...
If I used this book in my classroom it would focus on the social justice issues because this book represents many issues that we have in this culture. It would be a nice transition from the book to these issues. I liked how in class we made connections between the book and reality, and it was amazing to me how many things connected between the two.
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