Duh. I do my best to keep up on current trends but my late 50's are showing once again. The Hunger Games? What's that about? Just a hugely popular book trilogy by Suzanne Collins, soon to be a motion picture hyped to rival all them vampire flicks. Here is a more detailed description:
The Hunger Games is a young adult novel written by Suzanne Collins. It was originally published in 2008. It is written in the first person and introduces sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a dystopian world in the country of Panem where the countries of North America once existed. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, holds absolute power over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games are an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12 to 18 from each of the 12 districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle in which only one person can survive.
I see that a congregation in the United States has come up with a Hunger Games book/bible study, even though the books are not overtly religious. The study picks up on some of the spiritual themes in the books. Well, why not. Lots of youth groups discussed the Twilight series
because of the immense interest in the books and movies.
Do you or young 'uns you know read the books? I have now read the first volume and I can see why they are so popular. Do you see the religious parallels? Does it make any sense to study these popular series from the standpoint of faith?
Have read the first one and will now read the other two, now that some other titles are off my list...
ReplyDeleteTeaching intermediate students, and having a tween at home, this is the big topic of the day...!! Who stayed up last night to go, (not my child) and who will line up today?? A colleague has a university aged child and she said her daughter went at midnight last night dressed as one of the characters! It's hunger game madness!
In reading the first book, I did see some religious parallels, but also societal parallels. I am not sure if the younger end of the YA group this is targeted at, is getting these parallels. It will be interesting to hear the talk on Monday around our building, after many have had the opportunity to go.
Forgot to mention, that CBC is running a Hunger Games CBC CanLit is running a Hunger Games of it's own, where characters from Canadian Literary creations are pivitted against one another. Check it out at http://www.cbc.ca/books/2012/03/the-canlit-hunger-games.html and vote for your Candian literary character.
ReplyDeleteStarted the first one, found it poorly written and not that interesting. But anything that gets people reading is great. As I see it it is a poor take off of "Battle Royale". Won't be rushing out to see the movie, might catch it months down the road.
ReplyDeleteMy students are all over it too, Nancy. One took Friday off to find a theatre in Toronto where she could get advance tix. No joke.
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