The Hunger Games

Collins, S. (2008). The hunger games. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.

 “The Hunger Games” is a fantasy selection told from first person point of view.  16 year old Katniss Everdeen tells her story beginning the day of the country’s reaping.  The reaping began many years ago.  The country once had thirteen districts.  The districts rebelled, thirteen was destroyed, and the rest were handed the reaping ceremony as a reminder that the districts would never be able to prevail against the capitol.  The reaping ceremony consists of a male and female under the age of 18 being chosen from each district.  From this selection, 24 total from all around the country will meet up in an arena to fight to the death.

The first conflict arises when Katniss' sister, Prim is chosen to represent district 12.  Katniss is totally against this happening, therefore, she takes the place of her sister.  Ultimately, Katniss and Peeta Mellark go to the capitol to represent their country.  There are many, many more conflicts throughout the course of the book, which keeps the audience on a whim at all times.

There are several activities that you could do with this book, although, it would only be suitable for young adults.  You could allow students to compare and contrast many things in the book; my favorite thing to do is, of course, the countries.  This allows cross-curricular integration of social studies.