SATA
ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: Sunrise on the Reaping
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/
CITY: Sandy Hook
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 366
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born August 10, 1962, in Hartford, CT; daughter of Michael (an Air Force officer) and Jane Collins; married Charles “Cap” Pryor (an actor); children: two.
EDUCATION:Indiana University, B.A.; New York University, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Novelist and television scriptwriter. Television writer, beginning 1991. Worked previously as a clinical director of services for adults with learning disabilities, Cambridge Health Authority.
MEMBER:Authors Guild.
AWARDS:New York Public Library 100 Books for Reading and Sharing selection, 2003, for Gregor the Overlander; Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Award, 2006, for Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods; Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) Choices selection, 2008, for Gregor and the Code of Claw; Amelia Bloomer Project listee, Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults selection, and Notable Children’s Book selection, all American Library Association (ALA), and Notable Children’s Book selection, New York Times, all 2008, and CCBC Choices selection, and Stuff for the Teen Age listee, New York Public Library, both 2009, all for The Hunger Games; ALA Best Books for Young Adults selection, 2009, and Stuff for the Teen Age listee, 2010, both for Catching Fire; Nebula Award, Andre Norton Award nomination, and Notable Children’s Book selection, New York Times, all 2010, and Locus Award finalist, CCBC Choices listee, and IRA Young Adult’s Choice selection, all 2011, all for Mockingjay; Georgia Peach Book Awards for Teen Readers, 2010; California Young Reader Medal, 2011; Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award, Parents’ Choice Silver Honor selection, and CCBC Choices selection, all 2013, and Charlotte Zolotow Award Honor Book selection, Christopher Award, and Capitol Choices Noteworthy selection, all 2014, all for Year of the Jungle.
WRITINGS
Author’s work has been translated into over fifty languages.
Collins’ script for the Oswald television program was adapted by Dan Yaccarino as the picture book Oswald’s Camping Trip. The “Underland Chronicles” books were adapted for audio. The “Hunger Games” novels were adapted for audiobook, read by Carolyn McCormick, Scholastic Audio, 2010-11, and inspired books such as The Hunger Games A-Z, The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook, and The World of the Hunger Games, all 2012. Catching Fire was adapted for film by Simon Beaufoy and Michael DeBruyn, directed by Francis Lawrence, Lionsgate Films, 2013. Mockingjay was adapted for film in two parts, directed by Lawrence, Lionsgate Films, 2014 and 2015.
SIDELIGHTS
Suzanne Collins is the author of the “Hunger Games” trilogy, which is geared for young-adult readers, as well as the “Underland Chronicles,” a fantasy sequence aimed at a middle-grade audience. Additionally, Collins has worked as a screenwriter for children’s television programs such as Clarissa Explains It All, Little Bear, and Oswald. “I find there isn’t a great deal of difference technically in how you approach a story, no matter what age it’s for,” she remarked to a Scholastic website interviewer. “I started out as a playwright for adult audiences. When television work came along, it was primarily for children. But whatever age you’re writing for, the same rules of plot, character, and theme apply. You just set up a world and try to remain true to it.”
Collins was born in Connecticut as the youngest of four children, but with her father being an Air Force officer, the family moved frequently, especially around the eastern United States and Europe. Her father also taught history at the college level, and with his children he was open and instructive about his experiences during the Vietnam War. He would frequently take them to battlefields and war monuments and share his knowledge about what the conflict in question entailed. During Collins’s teen years, her family settled in the South, and she graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts in 1980. Gaining a bachelor’s degree at Indiana University, she double majored in theater and communications. In her mid-twenties she settled in New York City, earning a master’s in dramatic writing from New York University. After several successful years writing for television shows including Clarissa Explains It All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, Collins was encouraged by James Proimos, creator of Generation O!, to try writing novels. From there, an even more successful career was born.
Gregor the Overlander, the first installment in Collins’ “Underland Chronicles,” draws readers into an Alice in Wonderland-esque world wherein Gregor must traverse an urban environment that is more familiar to many children than the rural world of sunlit meadows. Gregor’s adventures begin when he pursues his two-year-old sister Boots through an air duct and into the strange new world below. What he finds in the Underland is not only a hidden human society, but also a world in which giant-sized rats, cockroaches, and spiders are able to communicate in human language. When Gregor arrives, the Underland is on the brink of a war that threatens to spread into the Overland, first to Manhattan and then throughout the world. When he learns that his father may be trapped in the Underland and require Gregor’s help, the preteen joins up with a giant rat named Ripred, Temp the cockroach, and Luxa, a mysterious human girl, to both locate the missing man and help him fulfill his destiny.
In Gregor the Overlander, Collins treats readers to “a fascinating, vivid, highly original world and a superb story to go along with it,” according to Ed Sullivan in a Booklist review, and a Kirkus Reviews contributor described her story as a “luminous, supremely absorbing quest.” Steven Engelfried, writing in School Library Journal, noted of the first “Underland Chronicles” book that “plot threads unwind smoothly, and the pace of the book is just right.”
As the “Underland Chronicles” continue, Gregor becomes a leader in the Underland. Joined again by companions Ripred, Temp, and Luxa, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane continues his effort to rescue Boots, who has now been kidnapped. Here Collins once again showcases her “careful attention to detail, pacing, and character development,” in the opinion of Horn Book reviewer Kitty Flynn, while in Booklist Sullivan dubbed Gregor “courageous, selfless, and ultimately triumphant” as he follows the path laid out for him in Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane .
In Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods the boy’s enemy is not an army, but a plague, one that his mother contracts. “Collins maintains the momentum, charm, and vivid settings of the original title,” wrote Tasha Saecker in her School Library Journal review of this series installment. Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods “delivers the breakneck adventure and strong characters readers have come to expect,” wrote a contributor to Kirkus Reviews, and Flynn concluded of this third “Underland Chronicles” novel that Collins’ “character development, plotting, pacing, and description all shine.”
Gregor and the Marks of Secret finds some of the boy’ allies in trouble. Together with Gregor, Luxa and Temp attempt to save the day, and “the breathless pace, intense drama, and extraordinary challenges” of their quest “will leave fans clamoring” for more, according to School Library Journal reviewer Mara Alpert. In Horn Book Flynn commented that “vivid description, expert pacing, and subtle character development all enhance” Collins’ fourth “gripping fantasy adventure.”
The final entry in the “Underland Chronicles” series, Gregor and the Code of Claw, follows the action as the protagonist learns of a terrifying prophecy that foreshadows his own death. The series climax approaches as Gregor prepares his warriors for a great battle with giant rats led by the despotic Bane, in the underground city of Regalia. Collins’ “greatest achievement in these tales,” according to a contributor in Kirkus Reviews, “is the effortless introduction of weighty geopolitical ethics into rip-roaring adventure.” Flynn also praised Gregor and the Code of Claw, stating in Horn Book that the author “delivers more of what’s made this series so compelling: vivid action scenes, detailed military machinations, and nuanced character development.”
Collins’ award-winning “Hunger Games” trilogy is set in a post-apocalyptic world where teenagers fight to the death for the gratification of a television audience. Playing out in The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, the saga mines several sources, among them the ancient myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which Atheneans sacrificed their children to a terrifying beast in order to avoid the punishment of rival king Minos of Crete. “I appropriated the Greek mythological premise of a conquering power that bent all of its subjects to its will through violence and maintained fear and domination through a not so subtle reminder to the neighboring peoples that they are not free and autonomous,” Collins told Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy interviewer James Blasingame in discussing her story. She also drew on the legend of the Thracian hero Spartacus, a former slave and gladiator who in 71 BCE led a revolt against the Roman Empire. “The very moment when the idea came to me for The Hunger Games, however, happened one night when I was very tired and I was lying in bed channel surfing,” Collins admitted to Blasingame. “I happened upon a reality program … that pitted young people against each other for money. As I sleepily watched, the lines of reality started to blur for me, and the idea for the book emerged.”
In The Hunger Games readers meet Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen year old living in District Twelve of Panem, a nation that has risen from the scattered ashes of the former United States. When her younger sister is chosen to participate in the annual Hunger Games to be held in the dictatorial Capitol, Katniss volunteers to go in her stead, joining twenty-three other contestants in the bloodthirsty gladiatorial contest that will be televised throughout the land. A skilled hunter and tracker, Katniss is joined by childhood acquaintance Peeta Mellark, the hapless son of a baker, in her fight for survival. “Collins’s characters are completely realistic and sympathetic as they form alliances and friendships in the face of overwhelming odds,” Jane Henriksen Baird remarked in School Library Journal, and Horn Book reviewer Jonathan Hunt noted that Katniss “displays great compassion and vulnerability through her first-person narration.”
A number of critics cited Collins’ depiction of violence as a strength of The Hunger Games. “You might not think it would be possible, or desirable, for a young-adult writer to describe, slowly and in full focus, a teenage girl getting stung to death by a swarm of mutant hornets,” Lev Grossman wrote in Time. “It wasn’t, until Collins did it. But rather than being repellent, the violence is strangely hypnotic. It’s fairy-tale violence, Brothers Grimm violence—not a cheap thrill but a symbol of something deeper.” As Stephen King maintained in Entertainment Weekly, “Reading The Hunger Games is as addictive (and as violently simple) as playing one of those shoot-it-if-it-moves videogames in the lobby of the local eightplex; you know it’s not real, but you keep plugging in quarters anyway.”
Catching Fire takes place in the aftermath of Katniss and Peeta’s improbable victory in the Hunger Games. Katniss’s performance is perceived by the Panem government as an act of rebellion and, during a public-relations tour, she learns that she will soon be sent back into the arena to face other former champions as part of a seventy-fifth-anniversary television special. “In addition to the continuing story of the girl in the ring,” observed New York Times Book Review critic Gabrielle Zevin, “ Catching Fire is a portrait of how a desperate government tries to hold off a revolutionary tide and as such has something of the epic feeling of [George] Orwell to it.” “Again, Collins’ crystalline, unadorned prose provides an open window to perfect pacing and electrifying world building,” Ian Chipman noted in Booklist, and Hunt remarked in Horn Book that Catching Fire serves up “a page-turning blend of plot and character with an inventive setting and provocative themes.”
Collins concludes her best-selling trilogy with Mockingjay, a novel that “will have the same lasting resonance as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Stephen King’s The Stand,” as Baird predicted in School Library Journal. Having secured a second victory in the games, Katniss becomes a reluctant figurehead for the growing rebel movement and must lead a special mission to the Capitol for a final confrontation with the despotic President Snow. According to New York Times Book Review contributor Katie Roiphe, the works in the “Hunger Games” trilogy “resist our hunger for clear definitions of good and evil, our sentimental need for a worthwhile cause, our desire for happy or simple endings, or even for the characters we like not to be killed or tortured or battered or bruised in graphic ways. Like the evil Capitol that controls and shadows its world, the trilogy tends to use the things we are attached to against us.” Appraising the closing “Hunger Games” tale in Voice of Youth Advocates, Lisa Hazlett concluded of Mockinjay that Collins’ “harsh, honest, and utterly compelling novel does not disappoint, purposefully requiring more thought concerning the story’s messages than time spent in its reading.”
Although the “Underland Chronicles” and the “Hunger Games” trilogy feature horrific scenes of warfare, Collins intended such violence to serve a larger purpose. “One of the reasons it’s important for me to write about war is I really think that the concept of war, the specifics of war, the nature of war, the ethical ambiguities of war are introduced too late to children,” she told School Library Journal interviewer Rick Margolis. “I think they can hear them, understand them, know about them, at a much younger age without being scared to death by the stories.” “If the whole concept of war were introduced to kids at an earlier age,” she suggested, perhaps “we would have better dialogues going on about it, and we would have a fuller understanding.”
In addition to her novels for older readers, Collins also entertains younger children in the picture books When Charlie McButton Lost Power and Year of the Jungle. Illustrated by Mike Lester, When Charlie McButton Lost Power finds a boy spending most of his time playing video games. When the electricity goes out, the lad is distraught until he finds a new way to entertain himself. A contributor to Children’s Bookwatch described Collins’ rhyming tale here as both “refreshingly original and moving.”
Collins takes readers back to her own childhood in the picture book Year of the Jungle, which “sensitively examines the impact of war on the very young,” according to a Publishers Weekly critic. Red haired and curious first grader Suzy puts her imagination to work when her father goes off to the war in a place called Viet Nam, trying to make sense of the adventures he describes in his post-cards home as well as the changes in her family during the time he is away. Made lighter in mood by James Proimos’s cartoon illustrations, Year in the Jungle is “an understated, extremely effective home-front story,” wrote Martha V. Parravano in her Horn Book review. Booklist contributor Thom Barthelmess recommended Collins’ story to “children missing parents in all kinds of circumstances,” while a Kirkus Reviews writer deemed Year of the Jungle both “important and necessary” and citing it as “a universal story for any child whose life is disrupted by war.”
Collins offers “Hunger Games” fans a prequel delving into President Snow’s coming of age and the story of District 12’s little-known first victor in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. To set the scene—sixty-four years prior to the original trilogy, during the “Dark Days” following Panem’s revolution—Collins drew on real-life history, especially the Reconstruction period following the U.S. Civil War and the post-World War II period, when damaged cities and lives had to be raised from the rubble. As cited by Joey Nolfi in Entertainment Weekly, Collins also said regarding her intentions, “I wanted to explore the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival.” The novel finds eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow ready to graduate from his academy but needing to win a prize in order to pay for university, as his family’s wealth was obliterated with District 13. His final assignment, to his dismay, is to mentor the female tribute from District 12 for the tenth annual Hunger Games, a spectacle that, during this early period, is strictly brutal. As it turns out, Lucy Gray Baird, the tribute, is a bravura performer with a powerful voice, and with her potential entertainment value comes the possibility of Snow reshaping the games—not to mention falling in love. Her legacy will catch up with him later, as signified above all in the song “Deep in the Meadow.”
A Publishers Weekly reviewer was enthralled by the novel, concluding that the “gripping mix of whipsaw plot twists and propulsive writing makes this story’s complex issues—vulnerability and abuse, personal responsibility, and institutionalized power dynamics—vivid and personal.” In her NPR review, Annalisa Quinn expressed reservations: “Readers who loved the moral ambiguity, crisp writing and ruthless pacing of the first three books might be less interested in an overworked parable about the value of Enlightenment thinking.” A Kirkus Reviews writer was more enthusiastic, appreciating how the prequel renders Snow sympathetic and even heroic, if “superficially.” The reviewer affirmed that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes amounts to a “tense, character-driven piece and a cautionary tale” in which “the twists and heartbreaks captivate despite tragic inevitabilities.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, November 15, 2003, Ed Sullivan, review of Gregor the Overlander, p. 608; September 1, 2004, Ed Sullivan, review of Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, p. 120; July, 2005, Ed Sullivan, review of Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, p. 1924; September 1, 2008, Francisca Goldsmith, review of The Hunger Games, p. 97; July 1, 2009, Ian Chipman, review of Catching Fire, p. 62; September 1, 2013, Thom Barthelmess, review of Year of the Jungle, p. 105.
BookPage, May, 2020, Stephanie Appell, “David Levithan: A Peek behind the Curtain at the New Hunger Games Prequel.”
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, January, 2004, Janice Del Negro, review of Gregor the Overlander, p. 185; October, 2004, Timnah Card, review of Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, p. 65; September, 2005, Timnah Card, review of Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, p. 11; December, 2009, Kate Quealy-Gainer, review of Catching Fire, p. 147; November, 2010, Kate Quealy-Gainer, review of Mockingjay, p. 123.
Horn Book, September-October, 2003, Kitty Flynn, review of Gregor the Overlander, p. 609; September-October, 2004, Kitty Flynn, review of Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, p. 578; July-August, 2005, Kitty Flynn, review of Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, p. 467; July-August, 2006, Kitty Flynn, review of Gregor and the Marks of Secret, p. 437; July-August, 2007, Kitty Flynn, review of Gregor and the Code of Claw, p. 391; September-October, 2008, Jonathan Hunt, review of The Hunger Games, p. 580; September-October, 2009, Jonathan Hunt, review of Catching Fire, p. 555; March-April, 2010, Martha V. Parravano, review of Catching Fire, p. 83; November-December, 2010, Jonathan Hunt, review of Mockingjay, p. 86; January-February, 2014, Martha V. Parravano, review of Year of the Jungle, p. 69.
Instructor, September-October, 2010, author interview, p. 51.
Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, May, 2009, James Blasingame, review of The Hunger Games, p. 724, and author interview, p. 726; March, 2011, James Blasingame, review of Mockingjay, p. 464.
Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2003, review of Gregor the Overlander, p. 1014; August 1, 2004, review of Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, p. 739; May 1, 2005, review of When Charlie McButton Lost Power, p. 536; June 15, 2005, review of Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, p. 680; May 15, 2006, review of Gregor and the Marks of Secret, p. 515; May 1, 2007, review of Gregor and the Code of Claw; September 1, 2008, review of The Hunger Games; July 1, 2009, review of Catching Fire; August 1, 2013, review of Year of the Jungle; June 15, 2020, review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Kliatt, November 1, 2008, Claire Rosser, review of The Hunger Games, p. 8.
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November-December, 2011, Charles de Lint, reviews of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, all p. 35.
New York Times Book Review, October 11, 2009, Gabrielle Zevin, review of Catching Fire, p. 13; September 12, 2010, Katie Roiphe, review of Mockingjay, p. 12.
Publishers Weekly, September 8, 2003, review of Gregor the Overlander, p. 77; November 3, 2008, Megan Whalen Turner, review of The Hunger Games, p. 58; June 22, 2009, review of Catching Fire, p. 46; November 8, 2010, review of Mockingjay, p. 32; May 27, 2013, review of Year of the Jungle, p. 58.
School Library Journal, November, 2003, Steven Engelfried, review of Gregor the Overlander, p. 134; October, 2004, Beth Meister, review of Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, p. 160; July, 2005, Tasha Saecker, review of Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, p. 100; July, 2005, Barbara Auerbach, review of When Charlie McButton Lost Power, p. 71; September, 2006, Mara Alpert, review of Gregor and the Marks of Secret, p. 202; July, 2007, Beth L. Meister, review of Gregor and the Code of Claw, p. 99; September, 2008, Rick Margolis, author interview, p. 30, and Jane Henriksen Baird, review of The Hunger Games, p. 176; September, 2009, Megan Honig, review of Catching Fire, p. 154; August, 2010, Rick Margolis, interview with Collins, p. 24; October, 2010, Jane Henriksen Baird, review of Mockingjay, p. 110; August, 2013, Kathleen Finn, review of Year of the Jungle, p. 69.
Time, September 7, 2009, Lev Grossman, review of The Hunger Games, p. 65.
Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 2004, review of Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, p. 21; December, 2009, Deborah L. Dubois, review of Catching Fire, p. 418; December, 2010, Lisa Hazlett, review of Mockingjay, p. 470.
ONLINE
Biography, https://www.biography.com/ (May 20, 2020), “Suzanne Collins Biography.”
Cheat Sheet, https://www.cheatsheet.com/ (October 4, 2020), Abeni Tinubu, “The Hunger Games Author, Suzanne Collins, on How She Got the Idea for the Books.”
Entertainment Weekly, https://ew.com/ (June 17, 2019), Joey Nolfi, “The Hunger Games Author Suzanne Collins to Release New Prequel Novel.”
Hollywood Reporter, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ (May 19, 2020), Lexy Perez, “Suzanne Collins Revisited The Hunger Games to ‘Plant the Seeds’ on Snow’s Backstory.”
NPR, https://www.npr.org/ (May 19, 2020), Annalisa Quinn, review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (May 19, 2020), review of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Scholastic, http://www.scholastic.com/ (January 15, 2011), “Suzanne Collins.”
Suzanne Collins website, http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com (November 24, 2020).
SyFy, https://www.syfy.com/ (May 19, 2020), Josh Weiss, “Suzanne Collins on Her Hunger Games Prequel Novel.”*
In 1991, Suzanne Collins began her professional career writing for children's television. She worked on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains it All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo. For preschool viewers, she penned multiple stories for the Emmy-nominated Little Bear and Oswald. She also co-wrote the Rankin/Bass Christmas special, Santa, Baby! with her friend, Peter Bakalian, which was nominated for a WGA Award in Animation. Most recently she was the Head Writer for Scholastic Entertainment's Clifford's Puppy Days and a freelancer on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! While working on a Kids WB show called Generation O! she met children's author and illustrator James Proimos, who talked her into giving children's books a try.
Thinking one day about Alice in Wonderland, she was struck by how pastoral the setting must seem to kids who, like her own, lived in urban surroundings. In New York City, you're much more likely to fall down a manhole than a rabbit hole and, if you do, you're not going to find a tea party. What you might find...? Well, that's the story of Gregor the Overlander, the first book in her five-part fantasy war series, The Underland Chronicles, which became a New York Times bestseller. Internationally, it has been sold in 21 languages. Audio books in English are read by Paul Boehmer and the first and the final books were chosen as ALSC Notable Children's Recordings.
Her next series, The Hunger Games, is a dystopian war story composed of five books, including the initial trilogy of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, and two prequels, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping. It's spent over seven years to date on The New York Times bestseller list since publication in September 2008, and has also appeared consistently on USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. An international bestseller, it has been sold in 55 languages. October 1, 2024, saw the publication of the first book in the illustrated series with art by Nico Delort. Recent audio books in English are read by Tatiana Maslany (The Hunger Games Trilogy), Santino Fontana (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), and Jefferson White (Sunrise on the Reaping.)
Lionsgate released a film adaptation of THE HUNGER GAMES on March 23, 2012, directed by Gary Ross who also shared screenplay credit with Suzanne and Billy Ray. It broke multiple box office records and went on to become the 14th highest-grossing North American release of all time on its way to generating nearly $700 million at the worldwide box office. Lionsgate released the second installment THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE worldwide on November 22, 2013, directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy and Michael (Arndt) DeBruyn and bringing back stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Willow Shields, Paula Malcomson, Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci and Lenny Kravitz along with new cast members Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone and Jeffrey Wright. It was the highest-grossing domestic box office release of 2013 and the 10th highest-grossing domestic release of all time. Lionsgate released THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 1 on November 21, 2014 and THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 2 on November 20, 2015, also directed by Lawrence and welcoming Julianne Moore, Mahershala Ali, Natalie Dormer, and Patina Miller to the cast. Both screenplays were by Peter Craig and Danny Strong from an adaptation by Suzanne Collins. All four films were produced by Nina Jacobson of Color Force and Jon Kilik. On November 17, 2023, Lionsgate released THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES directed by Francis Lawrence, written by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt, and produced by Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson and Lawrence. It starred Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Fionnula Flanagan, Jason Schwartzman, and Josh Andres Rivera. The worldwide box for the entire franchise is over 3.3 billion. THE HUNGER GAMES: SUNRISE ON THE REAPING, directed by Lawrence and produced by Jacobson, Simpson and Lawrence with Executive Producer Cameron MacConomy, is set to be released by Lionsgate on November 20, 2026. Suzanne has been an Executive Producer on all six films.
The first-ever live stage adaptation of "The Hunger Games" will begin performances on Oct. 20, 2025 at the Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre in London. Adapted from the first book and the first film in the series by award-winning playwright Conor McPherson, it will be helmed by renowned director Matthew Dunster.
In September 2013, Suzanne released a critically acclaimed autobiographical picture book, Year of the Jungle, illustrated by James Proimos. It deals with the year she was six and her father was deployed to Viet Nam. It has been sold into 12 territories in 11 languages. Her first picture book, When Charlie McButton Lost Power, about a boy obsessed with computer games, was illustrated by Mike Lester and came out in 2005. It has been sold into 4 foreign territories.
In 2010, Suzanne was named to the TIME 100 list as well as the Entertainment Weekly Entertainers of the Year list. In 2016, she was presented with the 2016 Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community for exemplifying the unique power of young people's literature to change lives and create lifelong book lovers. It was the first time the Guild presented the award to a YA author.
Her books have sold over 100 million copies worldwide.
Suzanne Collins
USA flag (b.1962)
Suzanne Collins has had a successful and prolific career writing for children's television. She has worked on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains It All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo. Collins made her mark in children's literature with the New York Times bestselling five-book series for middle-grade readers The Underland Chronicles, which has received numerous accolades in both the United States and abroad. In the award-winning The Hunger Games trilogy, Collins continues to explore the effects of war and violence on those coming of age. Collins lives with her family in Connecticut.
Genres: Young Adult Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction
Series
Underland Chronicles
1. Gregor the Overlander (2003)
aka Gregor and the Rats of Underland
2. Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane (2004)
3. Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods (2005)
4. Gregor and the Marks of Secret (2006)
5. Gregor and the Code of Claw (2007)
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Hunger Games
0. The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes (2020)
1. The Hunger Games (2008)
2. Catching Fire (2009)
3. Mockingjay (2010)
Sunrise on the Reaping (2025)
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Series contributed to
Mystery Files of Shelby Woo
11. Fire Proof (1999)
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Picture Books hide
When Charlie McButton Lost Power (2005)
Year of the Jungle (2013)
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Awards
2025 Dragon Award for Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel : Sunrise on the Reaping
Award nominations
2011 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Novel (nominee) : Mockingjay
2010 Andre Norton Award (nominee) : Mockingjay
Suzanne Collins is the internationally bestselling author of the Hunger Games series, which also includes the novels The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Together, the books have sold over 100 million copies and were the basis for five popular films. Her other books include the acclaimed Underland Chronicles series, which begins with Gregor the Overlander, and the picture book Year of the Jungle, illustrated by James Proimos. To date, her books have been published in fifty-three languages around the world.
Suzanne Collins
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other people named Suzanne Collins, see Suzanne Collins (disambiguation).
Suzanne Collins
Collins in 2010
Collins in 2010
Born August 10, 1962 (age 63)[1]
Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation
Novelistauthor
Education Indiana University Bloomington (BA)
New York University (MFA)
Genre Fantasy, science fiction, children's literature, young adult fiction, dystopian fiction
Notable works The Hunger Games
The Underland Chronicles
Spouse Charles Pryor (m. 1992)
Children 2
Signature
Website
suzannecollinsbooks.com
Suzanne Collins (born August 10, 1962)[2] is an American author and television writer who is best known as the author of the young adult dystopian book series The Hunger Games. She is also the author of the children's fantasy series The Underland Chronicles.
Early life and education
Collins was born on August 10, 1962,[2] in Hartford, Connecticut, to Jane Brady Collins (born 1931) and Lieutenant Colonel Michael John Collins (1931–2003),[3] a U.S. Air Force officer who served in the Korean and the Vietnam War.[4] Her grandfather and numerous uncles fought in both World Wars.[5] She is the youngest of four children, her older siblings being Kathryn (born 1957), Andrew (born 1958), and Joan (born 1960).[4] As the daughter of a military officer, she moved with her family very often, mostly living in Europe (specifically Brussels, Belgium)[6] and the eastern part of America.[7] As a young girl, Collins enjoyed reading, gymnastics, and exploring the woods with her friends.[7]
Collins graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham in 1980 as a Theater Arts major.[8] She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University Bloomington in 1985 with a double major in theater and telecommunications.[9][10][11] In 1989, Collins earned her Master of Fine Arts in dramatic writing from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts.[11]
Career
Collins began her career in 1991 as a writer for children's television shows.[12] She worked on several shows for Nickelodeon, including Clarissa Explains It All, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, Little Bear, Oswald and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!.[12] She was also the head writer for the PBS spin-off Clifford's Puppy Days.[12] She received a Writers Guild of America nomination in animation for co-writing the critically acclaimed 2001 Christmas special, Santa, Baby![13] After meeting children's author James Proimos while working on the Kids' WB show Generation O!, Collins felt inspired to write children's books herself.[12]
Her inspiration for Gregor the Overlander, the first book of The New York Times best-selling series The Underland Chronicles, came from Alice in Wonderland, when she was thinking about how one was more likely to fall down a manhole than a rabbit hole, and would find something other than a tea party.[12][13] Between 2003 and 2007, she wrote the five books of the Underland Chronicles: Gregor the Overlander, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Gregor and the Marks of Secret, and Gregor and the Code of Claw. During that time, Collins also wrote a rhyming picture book, When Charlie McButton Lost Power (2005), illustrated by Mike Lester.[12]
In September 2008, Scholastic Press released The Hunger Games, the first book of a series by Collins.[14] The Hunger Games was partly inspired by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. Another inspiration was her father's career in the Air Force, which gave her insight to poverty, starvation, and the effects of war.[4] The trilogy's second book, Catching Fire, was released in September 2009, and its third book, Mockingjay, was released on August 24, 2010.[15] Within 14 months, 1.5 million copies of the first two Hunger Games books were printed in North America alone.[16] The Hunger Games was on The New York Times Best Seller list for more than 60 weeks in a row.[16] Lions Gate Entertainment acquired worldwide distribution rights to a film adaptation of The Hunger Games, produced by Nina Jacobson's Color Force production company.[17][18] Collins adapted the novel for film herself.[18] Directed by Gary Ross, filming began in late spring 2011, with Jennifer Lawrence portraying main character Katniss Everdeen.[19] as well as Josh Hutcherson who played Peeta Mellark and Liam Hemsworth who played Gale Hawthorne.[20] The subsequent two novels were adapted into films as well, with the latter book split into two cinematic installments, for a total of four films representing the three books. As a result of the popularity of The Hunger Games books, Collins was named one of Time magazine's most influential people of 2010.[21] In March 2012, Amazon announced that she had become the best-selling Kindle author of all time.[22] Amazon also revealed that Collins had written 29 of the 100 most highlighted passages in Kindle ebooks—and on a separate Amazon list of recently highlighted passages, she had written 17 of the top 20.[23]
Collins released a Hunger Games prequel titled The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in May 2020. It is based on the life of future President Coriolanus Snow, 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games trilogy.[24][25] A film adaptation, starring Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, was released on November 17, 2023.[26] In March 2025, it was followed by Sunrise on the Reaping,[27] which explores the 50th Hunger Games won by Haymitch Abernathy.[27] Lionsgate procured the rights to adapt the novel into a film, which is set to release on November 20, 2026.[28]
Personal life
Collins moved to New York City in 1987 and lived there until 2003.[7]
In 1991, Collins met Charles "Cap" Pryor at Indiana University and they married in 1992.[29] Pryor has been supportive of Collins's career, reading and critiquing the earliest drafts of The Hunger Games.[30] They live in the Sandy Hook area of Newtown, Connecticut, with their two children, Charlie and Isabel.[6][30][29][31] Though Collins's IMDb profile claims she and Pryor divorced in 2015, this has never been confirmed.[6]
In 2013, Forbes reported that Collins has a net worth of $55 million, making her No. 3 on Forbes's Top-Earning Authors List.[32]
Awards
Work Year Award Category Result Ref.
The Hunger Games 2008 Cybils Award Speculative Fiction: Young Adult Won
2009-2010 Soaring Eagle Book Award Won [33]
2009 Buckeye Children's & Teen Book Award Won [34]
2009 Thumbs Up! Award Won [35]
2009 Locus Award Young Adult Novel Nominated [36]
2009 Inky Awards Silver Inky Award Won
2009 Golden Duck Award Hal Clement Award Won
2010 Hampshire Book Awards Book Award Won
2010 Kentucky Bluegrass Award Grades 9-12 Won [37]
2010 Children's Book Award Older Readers Won
2010 Children's Book Award Overall Won
2010 Vermont Golden Dome Book Award Won
2011 California Young Reader Medal Young Adult Won
2011 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award Won
2011 Sequoyah Book Award Young Adult and Intermediate Won
2011 Sequoyah Book Award High School Won
2011 Geffen Award Translated Science Fiction Novel Won
2012 2012 Teen Choice Awards Choice Book Won
2012 Concorde Book Award Won
2012 BILBY Award Older Readers Award Won
The Hunger Games (Film) 2013 Ray Bradbury Award Finalist
2012 Bram Stoker Award Best Screenplay Nominated
Catching Fire 2009 Goodreads Choice Awards Young Adult Series Won
2010 Golden Duck Award Hal Clement Award Won
2010 Locus Award Young Adult Novel Nominated [38]
2010 Indies Choice Book Awards Young Adult Won
2011-2012 Soaring Eagle Book Award Won [33]
2012 Geffen Award Science Fiction Won
2014 BILBY Award Older Readers Award Won
2018 Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best Nominated [39]
Mockingjay 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards Young Adult Fantasy Won [40]
2011 Neffy Awards SF/F Author Won [41]
2011 Children's Choice Book Awards Teen Choice Book of the Year Nominated [42]
2011 Locus Award Young Adult Novel Nominated [43]
2011 Andre Norton Award Nominated
2013 Geffen Award Young Adult Won
2016 BILBY Award Older Readers Award Won
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards Young Adult Fantasy Nominated [44]
2021 Geffen Award Science Fiction Won
Year of the Jungle 2014 Christopher Award Books for Young People - Kindergarten and up Won
2014 Charlotte Zolotow Award Honor
Gregor the Overlander
(aka: Gregor and the Rats of Underland) 2005 Beehive Book Award Children's Fiction Nominated [45]
2006 Waterstones Children's Book Prize Best Book Finalist
2004 NAIBA Children's Novel Award Won [46]
Other awards
ALSC Notable Children's Recording (audio version)[47]
2009: Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year: Children's Fiction for Catching Fire[48]
An American Library Association Top 10 Best Books For Young Adult Selection[49]
An ALA Notable Children's Book[50]
A Horn Book Fanfare[51]
NY Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing[52]
2016: Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community (first time awarded to an author of young adult fiction)[53]
Bibliography
The Underland Chronicles
Gregor the Overlander (2003)
Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane (2004)
Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods (2005)
Gregor and the Marks of Secret (2006)
Gregor and the Code of Claw (2007)
The Hunger Games series
Original series
The Hunger Games (September 14, 2008)
Catching Fire (September 1, 2009)
Mockingjay (August 24, 2010)
Prequels
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (May 19, 2020)
Sunrise on the Reaping (March 18, 2025)[27]
Other books
Fire Proof (The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, #11) (1999)[54]
When Charlie McButton Lost Power (2005)
Year of the Jungle (2013)
March 18th, 2025
Scholastic Releases New Interview with Suzanne Collins, Author of the Worldwide Bestselling Hunger Games Series
"" *
SUNRISE ON THE REAPING,
A NEW HUNGER GAMES NOVEL, ON SALE TODAY, MARCH 18, 2025
New York, NY (March 18, 2025)—Scholastic (NASDAQ: SCHL), the global children’s publishing, education and media company, today released a new interview with Suzanne Collins, author of the worldwide bestselling Hunger Games series timed to the publication of Sunrise on the Reaping, on sale today. Author Suzanne Collins spoke about the book to David Levithan, SVP, Publisher and Editorial Director at Scholastic, also one of her editors. [Please note that the interview does contain some spoilers].
David Levithan: After writing in Coriolanus’s voice for Ballad, it must have felt like quite a change to slip into Haymitch’s point of view. Can you talk about what it was like to be wearing his voice and how that shaped the book as a whole?
Suzanne Collins: After traveling with Coriolanus, who is endlessly manipulative and controlling, it was a relief to wear both Haymitch’s voice and character. He has a much greater capacity for hope and love and joy. More than Coriolanus — or Katniss, for that matter. His voice is Seam overlaid with Lenore Dove’s Covey influence. There’s far more color to his expression, more humor. Sadly, at the end of the book you see his concentrated effort to strip all that away, so by the time you reach the trilogy, his language has lost the musicality of his youth. A combination of his desperation to forget combined with years of Capitol TV erase it. I like to think in his remaining years after the war, he reclaims it. You can hear it coming back in the epilogue.
David Levithan: It is a particular challenge to start a novel when you and most of its future readers already know its ending.
Suzanne Collins: It’s another way to approach a story, but it has its advantages. If you look at Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, we learn in the prologue that the lovers will die. So you’re really not focused on what’s going to happen, but on how or why it happens. In the same way, you know Haymitch becomes a victor and Snow kills his loved ones, but you don’t know the events that lead to these ends. How? Why? Where? What? Who? You have to read the book to find out.
David Levithan: In some of our initial conversations about the book, we talked about whether it would be written in the voice of the older Haymitch looking back or the younger Haymitch processing it as he experienced it. What led you to decide to take the approach you ultimately did?
Suzanne Collins: I played around with it both ways, but I found that younger Haymitch speaks directly to the YA audience the best. An older person reflecting back on their youth or shifting into a child’s perspective is harder to pull off. Good work, Harper Lee!
David Levithan: How do you feel spending so much time in younger Haymitch’s shoes has changed your understanding of the Haymitch we see in the trilogy?
Suzanne Collins: I don’t think it changed my understanding of him — Haymitch is still Haymitch — but it gave me room to explore his earlier journey. Like his relationship to Katniss via Burdock. What it meant to take on his best friend’s child and see her through the war and become her surrogate father. It was nice to have some time with that angle.
David Levithan: Like the other Hunger Games books, there is a clear three-part structure in place here, with each part getting the same number of chapters. How does this structure help you shape the story?
Suzanne Collins: I began as a playwright over forty years ago, and that dramatic structure became the template for the novels. Since I’ve worked with it for decades, it’s almost second nature, and that allows me to spend my energy elsewhere. This is the tenth book I’ve used this structure for, so I know certain things I want to achieve by certain points in the story. If I haven’t achieved them, something isn’t working the way I hoped, and I probably need to pause and figure out why.
#END OF INTERVIEW
ABOUT SUNRISE ON THE REAPING
Sunrise on the Reaping will revisit the world of Panem twenty-four years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell.
As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves. When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.
Publication Date: March 18, 2025 | Scholastic Press | Ages 12 and up
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-5461-7146-1 | Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5461-7147-8
Audio Download ISBN: 978-1-5461-7149-2 | Library Audio Download ISBN: 978-1-5461-7150-8
Audio CD ISBN: 978-1-5461-7148-5 | Audiobook narrated by Jefferson White
ABOUT SUZANNE COLLINS AND THE HUNGER GAMES:
Bestselling author Suzanne Collins first made her mark in children’s literature with the New York Times bestselling Underland Chronicles fantasy series for middle grade readers. She continued to explore the effects of war and violence on those coming of age with The Hunger Games series. The Hunger Games (2008) was an instant bestseller, appealing to both teen readers and adults. It was called “addictive” by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly, and “brilliantly plotted and perfectly paced” by John Green in the New York Times Book Review. The book appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 260 consecutive weeks (more than five consecutive years), and the total series has been on the series bestseller list for more than 360 weeks to date. There are more than 100 million copies of all four books in the series—The Hunger Games, Catching Fire (2009), Mockingjay (2010), and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020)—in print and digital formats worldwide. Foreign publishing rights for The Hunger Games have been sold in 55 languages to date. Lionsgate has successfully adapted each of these books into five feature films that collectively grossed more than $3.3 billion worldwide in theatrical ticket sales.
In 2010 Suzanne Collins was named to the TIME 100 list as well as the Entertainment Weekly Entertainers of the Year list; in 2011 Fast Company named her to their 100 Most Creative People in Business; and in 2016 she was presented the 2016 Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community for exemplifying the unique power of young people’s literature to change lives and to create lifelong book lovers. It was the first time the Guild presented its annual award to a YA author. The Atlantic called Hunger Games heroine Katniss Everdeen, “the most important female character in recent pop culture history,” and TIME Magazine named Katniss to its list of “The 100 Most Influential People Who Never Lived.” On The Hunger Games trilogy, The New York Times Book Review wrote, “At its best the trilogy channels the political passion of 1984, the memorable violence of A Clockwork Orange, the imaginative ambience of The Chronicles of Narnia and the detailed inventiveness of Harry Potter." The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was published in May 2020 and debuted at #1 on the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. The book also was the top selling book in any category for the first half of 2020. On October 1, 2024, Scholastic published The Hunger Games Illustrated Edition, a deluxe illustrated edition of Suzanne Collins’ worldwide bestseller The Hunger Games, featuring more than thirty black-and-white illustrations by internationally acclaimed artist Nico Delort. Catching Fire: Illustrated Edition, illustrated by Nico Delort, will be published October 7, 2025.
More information about The Hunger Games series and images for download available HERE.
ABOUT SCHOLASTIC:
For more information about Scholastic, visit http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/.
Sunrise on the Reaping. By Suzanne Collins. Scholastic; 400 pages; $27.99 and £19.99
There is, one character says, "no way to pretty up what follows". Indeed. Nor is there any attempt to, as that might spoil the fun. By the end of the first chapter, a shot has rung out, causing one boy's head to "explode". A little later, a girl's head cracks open on the floor (blood leaks onto her plait); then another is poisoned ("blood begins running from her eyes, her nose, her mouth"); a third girl's eye is gouged from its socket (blood is everywhere). For the dramatic climax, the hero is disembowelled; for the romantic one, his beloved is poisoned and "blood-flecked foam bubbles up over her lips".
Welcome to the latest serving of "The Hunger Games", the dystopian young-adult (YA) franchise for which the world seems to have an almost insatiable appetite. Suzanne Collins's new instalment, "Sunrise on the Reaping", is the bestselling book on Amazon and has shifted more copies than any other fiction title on the e-commerce site in 2025. A film version of "Sunrise" will come out in November 2026. It is likely to do well: the books have sold over 100m copies worldwide, and the five previous films grossed a combined $4.4bn globally after adjusting for inflation. In October a stage adaptation of "The Hunger Games" will open in Canary Wharf in London, in a custom-built theatre that can seat 1,200 people. It turns out that the market for dead children and sentences such as "I felt my intestines sliding out" is big.
It is also very old. When the first book in "The Hunger Games" series was published in 2008, there was hand-wringing about its violent plot. Every year each of the 12 districts of Panem sends two children to fight to the death in games, while the nation watches enthusiastically on all-revealing screens. Winning depends on brute force but also on-screen magnetism, since the contestants who are "liked" by the audience (in both the social sense and the social-media one) get more perks. This is survival of the fittest in every way.
But as Theseus—a young man from ancient Athens sent to Crete as part of an annual tribute of youths to feed a mythical man-eating Minotaur—could attest, stories about innocent youngsters being sent to their doom have always done well. And as the fate of Aegeus, his father (who kills himself when he thinks Theseus has died), proves, adults have always found this sort of stuff harder to stomach than children, who don't seem to find it hard at all. "Sunrise on the Reaping" is at the top of Amazon's list of "Books on Death for Young Adults", which is surprisingly long.
A red thread of gore winds from the Minotaur's maze through all books for youngsters. One of the earliest of all was a 17th-century Puritan manual titled "A Token for Children", which, as its subtitle explained, offered "an exact account of the conversion, holy and exemplary lives and joyful deaths of several young children". (They catch various incurable diseases, then expire piously, promptly and—between bouts of blood-spitting—full of happiness at the thought that they are off to "enjoy the embraces of [our] Saviour".) The overall tone is, as Sam Leith, author of "The Haunted Wood", a book about children's literature, has put it, your "basic snuff-fiction anthology".
Corpses, then, are a constant in literature for the young; what changes is how this gore is rationalised. "A Token" justified it with Satan. By contrast, "The Hunger Games" seasons its violence with politics, rather than piety. Panem's capital, the "Capitol", is plastered with posters whose slogans ("NO PEACE, NO BREAD! NO PEACE, NO SECURITY!") might have come straight from George Orwell's Oceania; Orwell also inspired the Big Brother-style cameras that watch the contestants everywhere they go. "Sunrise" comes with epigraphs from Orwell (on truth) and David Hume (on government). This is death with dystopian pretensions.
This, too, is typical. If you currently think the world feels a little dystopian, that is nothing compared with the mood of YA bookshelves, which are packed with glum titles like "Plague" and even glummer covers. YA dystopias are "immensely" popular, says Gregory Claeys, a professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, which he puts down to a "seeping anxiety" about the world.
Many dystopias come to be seen as prescient; far more often they are a portrait of present fears. Stalinism helped inspire Orwell's "1984 "; the Stasi influenced "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood . She had a rule that she would "not put any events into the book that had not already happened", because, if she were to create an imaginative garden, she "wanted the toads in it to be real". Ms Collins's strongest inspiration for "The Hunger Games" was her "unsettling" experience of channel-hopping between reality-TV shows and coverage of the Iraq war and finding that the two started to blur.
It has been said that the tense of dystopia is not "now" but "not yet". Dystopias usually avoid painting precise political portraits; they are political parables , and like parables, can be widely applied and reinterpreted. In 2018, more than 30 years after "The Handmaid's Tale" was published and a year after the first season of the TV version aired, women across the world dressed in red robes and white bonnets as they rallied in favour of women's rights. Many will project today's problems, from a hot war waged by Russia to political wars in the West, onto "Sunrise on the Reaping": it bottles the sombreness of the moment, even if it was not expressly intended to. When the film comes out next year, interpretations could change again.
Until then, the most sinister Big Brother in "The Hunger Games" feels less Orwellian than televisual: this is a social-media dystopia, in which you are always being watched and being "liked" can change your life. Another Amazon bestseller list that "The Hunger Games" tops is called "Books on Being a Teen for Young Adults". This list is rich with titles such as "The Teenager's Guide to Burnout", which advises readers to "consider taking a social-media break". "The Hunger Games", by contrast, offers advice on how to attack the problems of social media with an axe. And it is outselling them all.
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Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated
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"Hungry for more 'Hunger Games'? There is plenty in store." The Economist, 3 Apr. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A833748116/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=61d6b7a0. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
''Sunrise on the Reaping,'' by Suzanne Collins, explores the devastating story of Haymitch Abernathy, a mentor in the original ''Hunger Games'' novels.
SUNRISE ON THE REAPING, by Suzanne Collins
It has been 17 years since the first book in Suzanne Collins's ''The Hunger Games'' series was published. In the nearly two intervening decades, the novel has spawned three further books, five movies and an endless supply of Halloween costumes, fan fiction and memes. So when it was announced that Collins had written a fifth book in the series, a new prequel already being adapted for the screen, I feared the franchise might have gone the way of so many popular properties before it: profit-driven bloat.
It is with great pleasure, then, that I can report that ''Sunrise on the Reaping'' is a propulsive, heart-wrenching addition to ''The Hunger Games,'' adding welcome texture to the cruel world of Panem.
This is the second prequel Collins has written since the initial trilogy about Katniss Everdeen, the reluctant teenage revolutionary who was forced to battle other children to the death in Panem's annual Hunger Games and eventually rose up to fight the domineering Capitol. The first prequel, ''The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,'' followed the early years of Katniss's nemesis, President Coriolanus Snow, tracking his time as an impoverished but ambitious Capitol mentor to an early Hunger Games tribute and showing how that led him down a path to fascism.
Now, with ''Sunrise on the Reaping,'' Collins turns her attention to Haymitch Abernathy, the jaded, alcoholic, fiercely devoted mentor who coached Katniss in the original series.
Collins has set herself a harder project with this second prequel: While Snow's back story was largely blank, Collins had already sketched the broad strokes of Haymitch's. In the initial books, we learned how Haymitch won the 50th Hunger Games and that, upon his return home, he discovered a Capitol-inflicted tragedy. Given that we already know our hero's fate, do we need, you might ask, to go back and flesh out the gruesome details?
But in expanding Haymitch's story, Collins paints a shrewd portrait of the machinery of propaganda and how authoritarianism takes root.
The book opens, like the original, in a coal-mining holler of District 12 on reaping day -- which also happens to be Haymitch's 16th birthday. It has been 50 years since the failed rebellion against the Capitol, and every year since, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each of the defeated districts have been chosen in a lottery and forced to fight to the death.
Teenage Haymitch is a down-to-earth moonshiner's apprentice who dreams of keeping his ma and little brother safe; building a future with his sweetheart, Lenore Dove; and staying out of trouble. It is his bad luck that, this year, the Games come with a cruel twist: To mark the second Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes are chosen from each district. He initially avoids selection, but when the second male tribute is killed at the reaping ceremony, Haymitch is taken instead.
The story that unspools from there features the familiar beats we've come to expect from a ''Hunger Games'' tale: the train journey to the Capitol; the cognitive dissonance of taking in its opulence and horrors; the pageantry and jockeying for allies and sponsors; and, of course, the countless nightmares of the Games. Many familiar faces from the original trilogy pop up too, including Beetee, a tech whiz former victor from District 3 whose own 12-year-old son, Ampert, has been reaped as punishment for his father's attempt to sabotage Panem's communications network. While Ampert organizes the more vulnerable tributes into an alliance, his dad recruits Haymitch to help sabotage the arena, hoping to end the Hunger Games once and for all.
Collins has not lost her flair for the grisly, and there are some horrifying scenes once the tributes reach the arena -- a verdant garden of earthly terrors. Once again, we find ourselves complicit in the grotesque voyeurism of watching a bunch of scared, exhausted children get executed in increasingly brutal ways; a death by genetically modified squirrels is particularly haunting.
What saves Collins's work from veering into torture porn is the ferocious humanity with which she imbues her characters. ''Sunrise on the Reaping'' features a vibrant cast, especially the other District 12 tributes -- the precocious Louella, the pragmatic Wyatt and the surprisingly savvy Maysilee -- and Collins draws out each character's anguish and tenderness, their humor and stubborn hope, as they refuse to follow the Capitol's script. This is the project of dystopian fiction: to shine a light in tyranny's greasiest corners and show how people -- ordinary, determined human beings -- might take it apart.
''Sunrise on the Reaping'' comes overloaded with poetry (passages from Edgar Allan Poe's ''The Raven'' recur like a bad ear worm), song lyrics and four epigraphs, two of which are from the Scottish philosopher David Hume, who Collins said inspired the book. But if I were to add my own, I would offer the anthropologist Margaret Mead: ''Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.''
SUNRISE ON THE REAPING | By Suzanne Collins | Scholastic | 382 pp. | $27.99
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This article appeared in print on page BR11.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 The New York Times Company
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Harlan, Jennifer. "Quell Surprise." The New York Times Book Review, 1 June 2025, p. 11. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A842238585/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7e4b48ab. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Collins, Suzanne SUNRISE ON THE REAPING Scholastic (Teen None) $27.99 3, 18 ISBN: 9781546171461
The Hunger Games twist, destroy, and galvanize another wave of young people in this entry set 24 years before the series opener.
Haymitch Abernathy is turning 16, and he'd love nothing more than to spend his birthday with his girlfriend, Lenore Dove. Unfortunately, it's also the reaping day of the Fiftieth Hunger Games and the second Quarter Quell, meaning twice as many tributes will be chosen from each District for the lethal contest. Being torn from everything familiar all at once is only the beginning of Haymitch's tortures: Death and manipulation follow him every step of the way into the Capitol's media circus and through the famed games. Slivers of hope exist--alliances among players, whispers of sabotage--though violence, misery, and encounters with mutated creatures frequently comprise the spoils. This book contains enough lore to stand alone, but returning fans will weave the thoughtfully placed callbacks and returning characters into their understanding of this world's tragic chain of events. By this point, the game masters and audience within Panem have developed a sophisticated understanding of the Hunger Games, and Collins combines many of the best qualities of the series into one book, balancing layers of personal insights, worldbuilding, and danger to form an inescapable whirlwind of suspense and conflict. She makes frequent use of music and poetry, underscoring the enduring power of generational messages. Characters largely present white.
A heartbreaking crescendo and another grimly irresistible chapter in the saga of this interlocking series.(Dystopian. 13-adult)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Collins, Suzanne: SUNRISE ON THE REAPING." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A837325435/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=57a26ca3. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Collins, Suzanne CATCHING FIRE Scholastic (Teen None) 10, 7
Back to the Games--and some really beautiful art.
Following the release ofThe Hunger Games: Illustrated Edition (2024), this new edition of the second series entry (originally released in 2009) once again pairs Delort's impressive scratchboard artwork with Collins' enduringly popular text to create a work that will be treasured by old and new fans alike. In this installment, Hunger Games victors Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark return to their economically depressed district of Panem, a country run by the elderly totalitarian dictator President Snow. The teens' enjoyment of their time as victors is cut short when they're unexpectedly recruited to again participate in the cutthroat annual competition, all while maintaining a fictitious version of their relationship to win support from viewers. While the storyline may be familiar to many, the illustrations in this new edition enhance the plot. Delort makes use of interesting angles and perspectives to create tension: A portrait of President Snow is cropped to emphasize his mouth and hands; Peeta's on-air proposal to Katniss is depicted from a distance, highlighting the cameras capturing every moment; and the introduction of Finnick Odair, standing beside his horse, emphasizes his physical prowess and beauty. Those familiar with the movie will appreciate this new visual interpretation, and those who love the books will marvel at the artistic additions to the story.
This book is lit!(Dystopian. 12-18)
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"Collins, Suzanne: CATCHING FIRE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Nov. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A861513748/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f6ad2f57. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.