I am usually slow to join the literature bandwagon. I avoided Twilight until the third movie was already out and my students’ declaration of its pure awesomeness finally forced me to read it. The Hunger Games trilogy was similar. Suzanne Collins did for dystopian societies what Stephanie Meyer did for vampires… create a new cult following amongst today’s teens, not to mention the equally large group of adult followers. The difference for me, however, was that I finished The Hunger Games trilogy; I quit after book two of Twilight. I just couldn’t force myself to read another 1300 pages of that monotonous vampire/werewolf battle-for-the-girl-with-no-self-esteem.
The Hunger Games kept me hooked all the way to the last pages of its final installment, Mockingjay. I began the series only because the library’s middle school book club chose it as their February read. I cringed at their choice because I knew the premise: 24 teenagers are placed in an arena where they must fight each other to the death on national television. If you think that the violence must be watered down since it’s a “kids’” book, think again. The violence is graphic, the blood is abundant, and many, many characters—the majority children—die. In the second book, Catching Fire, the torture inflicted upon the characters only heightens, and in Mockingjay, most of our favorite characters perish in an all-out war. The only thing that makes this a “young adult” series is the fact that the main characters are teenagers. If you can accept the idea of an entire nation following a sixteen-year-old girl in a rebellion, you will find that the series could go toe-to-toe with any adult futuristic war novel, except that like all YA, it gets to the point more quickly.
You may be wondering why in the world anyone would let their child read this. First of all, Collins doesn’t glamorize the killings in these books. She forces the reader to consider the emotional, psychological, and moral consequences of them as we live through the experiences with main character Katniss. This isn’t like the bloody video games that many teens play daily, desensitizing them to violence. These novels evoked powerful book club discussions including how corrupt government can be in the wrong hands and what we would do if we were forced into a kill-or-be-killed situation. We also noted that, as far-fetched and repulsive as it at first seemed, the idea of watching people fight to the death would, sadly, probably be a hit in our reality-TV-obsessed society. And like any good teen novel, the series had a love triangle that sparked heated arguments over who should win the heart of Katniss who—unlike Twilight’s constant damsel in distress, Bella—was always coming to the rescue of her men. I’ll admit that as much as I thought the love triangle was complete overkill in the first book, I found myself picking a side in the Team Peeta/Team Gale debate and angrily slamming Mockingjay down on the table when Katniss didn’t end up with my favorite.
YA is emerging into a category for youth and adults alike. The Hunger Games can connect teachers and students as well as parents and teenage children, with whom they often feel like they have nothing in common. Even though the content is intense, the story goes far beyond the entertainment value of war and presents many opportunities for lessons about survival, human decency, and compassion.
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