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Once a year all the residents of District 12 must attend the reaping, during which two names are drawn from those of everyone between the ages of 12 and 18.  The girl and boy chosen will become District 12’s tributes to the Hunger Games, a televised spectacle in which 24 youths will battle to the death until one lone survivor remains.
Sixteen-year old Katniss Everdeen has had to grow up quickly.  Following her father’s death in a mining accident and her mother’s lengthy fall into depression, Katniss had to become her family’s breadwinner, stealing under the security fence that separates the district from the wilderness beyond to find food.  Mindful of her late father’s lessons, and with the help of her friend Gale, Katniss learns to forage for plants and berries, and hunt and fish for game.  With this food, and with the money she is able to earn by selling some of it in the black market, Katniss is able to keep her mother and little sister, Prim, fed and clothed and sheltered.
On that morning of the reaping, Katniss is nervous because her name appears on 14 slips of paper in that ball from which one slip will be drawn, one for every year since she turned twelve, and the others for the times she has had to go and ask for extra rations for her family.  But it is her little sister Prim’s name that is called out, and horrified, Katniss, runs forward to offer herself in her sister’s place.  Too quickly, she finds herself saying her final good-byes to her mother and sister, and being escorted to the train that will take her, and her fellow tribute, Peeta, to the Capitol.
In the days that follow, Katniss and Peeta are coached in strategy, survival tactics, and combat in preparation for entering the arena where the Hunger Games will take place.  Like always, the exact location of this year’s arena is kept secret, so that tributes won’t have any idea about the climate or terrain until the games begin.  Though wary about becoming friends with Peeta, since, inevitably, only one of them can hope to leave the arena alive, Katniss is won over by the young man’s kindness and honesty.  Their team decides to play up their tentative friendship, and sells it to the television audience as a romance, something, they hope, will garner the tributes from District 12 some healthy sponsorships, which might give them a fighting chance at survival once the games begin.
From the start, Haymitch, her drunkard of a trainer, has told Katniss that her only chance of surviving the initial bloodbath that will follow the opening of the games is to get away from the other tributes as quickly as possible.  So, rather than making a grab for some of the mountain of supplies that are offered, Katniss runs for the trees.  She survives the first day, but is soon feeling the effects of dehydration as she tries desperately to find water.  In the torturous days that follow, she will be witness to unspeakable acts of savagery and violence, and have to choose between making her own way, or forging a partnership with someone else.  And finally, Katniss will have to choose what is more important – winning the game and reinforcing the Capitol’s control over her actions, or affirming her growing belief that there may be some things more important than winning.
A thought-provoking collision between Survivor and Rome’s gladiatorial games, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games will grip intermediate readers’ attention from the very first page.
FernFolio Editor