The Hunger Games Series
Title: The Hunger Games Trilogy
2. Catching Fire
3.Mockingjay
Author: Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games movie came out on Netflix and my husband really wanted to watch it. But I have a rule in my house about watching movies before I read the books, which goes like this: I don’t. I did want to see the movie, but I feared the series a little bit. I didn’t want to read something out of obligation to curiosity and book pop culture and then feel let down like I had with Twilight.
I enjoyed Twilight, but I felt as though I had killed off more than a few brain cells by suffering through the commitment of all four books… but Twilight was a paranormal romance adventure… The Hunger Games is a dystopian society… there, there it is again “dystopian society” that little phrase that sucks me in every time!
So this week began project Hunger Games. I wanted to at least get through a chunk of the first book before movie date night, and I did get through a bit, but I did not have the book completed when I watched the movie. I tell you what though, I went through the movie and all three books in three days and I’m blown away. It was pretty awesome considering what I was expecting. The series is more comparable to Harry Potter than Twilight, in my opinion.
When I finished Mockingjay, I closed the book with a shake and had to go take a shower to wash the invisible grime off my skin and bask in the happiness of the epilogue. It was perfect.
A lot of people say the third book wasn’t good. I admit I was thoroughly disheartened about halfway through, and the emotional disconnect of some of the primary characters lasted way too long. But it was appropriate. It made the end that much sweeter.
On to the highlight of the purpose of my post:
This is the most intelligently written young adult love triangle ever.
Love triangles in young adult novels are pretty much a staple plot line. Everyone has them. They are always melodramatic, fitting considering the angst of being a teenager. But Collins wrote a tip of an iceberg beauty that I will actually be proud to share with my daughter.
Why?
Love is presented very clearly as a choice. In a world that is completely out of Katniss Everdeen’s control, in times when her family’s safety is based on how she behaves towards others, in a time when the choices don’t seem to be hers at all but a manipulation tactic from the authorities in her life… who she loves and how she loves them is still her choice.
I’m so exhausted of whirlwind romances in young adult novels that are out of the teen’s control. They fell in love… they were destined… they were fated…. blah, blah, blah.
I believe that everything happens for a reason, I do. I believe that God has a plan, I do. But I also believe that loving others and how we show them that is a choice every step of the way. What I like about Collins’ book is the importance one simple choice leads to another choice to another and another and steam rolls into larger choices. The whole book is about the importance of weighing consequences, realities, and feelings within the scales of logic, need, and want. Sure, events out of the characters’ control changes circumstances, but given new circumstances what is the new ‘right’ choice.
I love it.
If you haven’t read the books, I tried to write this in such a way so I would not overwhelm you with blatant spoilers. I hope you understand my meaning without clear cut examples. Maybe when the dust settles I’ll write a spoiler alert review.
The Prominence League
Title: The Prominence League
Author: C. David Cannon
Publisher: Lucid Books
Genre: Young Adult
Length: 197 pages
C. David Cannon is friendly, jovial even. I don’t know if he is like this all the time or if he was just on a high from his first official book signing, but I would consider him quite pleasant.
His book, on the other hand, is not jovial. Instead, it’s a social commentary on freedom, discussed in the form of a dystopian fiction piece. ‘Ah, yes, a dystopian society young adult novel… you’re a sucker for those,’ I can hear the blogosphere groan. I AM! I am a sucker for those, because they’re inevitably so darn good!
“I think to myself that I am tired of being a captive. I am tired of living under their tyrannical guidelines, being monitored every minute, and rationed food and resources. I finally admit to myself that the President was right. I have been caught up in the adventure, and cannot turn back now.”
Like Carriane, you’ll get caught up in the adventure too, and you won’t want to turn back.
Fans of Invitation to the Game
The Prominence League, though a completely different story with a totally different style, continuously reminded me of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Those are values you expect to find in a Chinese man who fled to France in the 80’s to publish copies of his own illegal work, but not in a fifth grade teacher in suburbia. For that, I find Cannon refreshing.
At the Half Price Books Humble book signing, Cannon told a story about his fifth grade class and how he read chapters to his students. He talked of a running joke they had together about how often a character passed out at the end of each segment. If the book has one flaw, it would be that Carriane McAdams does indeed have a hard time getting from chapter to chapter while remaining conscious. Summoning my middle-grade self, however, I found I enjoyed the game of ‘how does she get conked out this time?’ It gave the book an interactive air and kept it from feeling too dark.
I would have liked to see the book about a 50 pages longer, develop Carriane’s relationship with her own environment and Caleb prior to his disappearing act and her re-education. I would have liked to see her spend more time in training, get a better understanding of what that training feels like to the characters, but wrap up the novel exactly the same. There is nothing wrong with how Cannon handled his story, it is highly entertaining, and I think it would make a strong impact on a young reader. The opening just moved more quickly than I would have liked, which is probably the same quality that makes it perfect for intermediate readers – he gets right to the point. Cannon’s book would be a great gift for enticing kids to love the written word.
The Prominence League Two and Three are yet to come. When they do, I would be psyched to purchase a Prominence League Omnibus complete with all three books in one volume… hint, hint to the marketing department at Lucid Books.
A Review of Michael Grant’s Gone
Title: GONE
Author: Michael Grant
Publisher: HarperTeen
Genre: Young Adult/ Science Fiction
Length: 558 pages
Take the horror of Golding’s Lord of the Flies
My niece handed me this book, she’s in the third volume of the series, and loving it. She’s into the dark and twisty books these days, I remember being into them at that age too. And though I’m hooked on these as an adult as well, I find these a little too dark and twisty from the perspective of a parent.
Kids killing kids, babies starving to death trapped in homes without care, fires, dark demon-like creatures on the hunt, it’s a little too much when I think of it with my own kiddo in mind. It puts my obsessive crazy brain on a mission to ensure my child is a self-sufficient survivor with some mad Kung Fu skills under her belt as soon as possible. It reminds me the value of teaching my kid about God, love, and the makings of good leaders; how to recognize right from wrong and good from bad without having an adult there to tell you. In case of crisis, this is the plan…
When it comes down to it, Grant is a great writer for this genre. He is dark and twisty, but he does limit his descriptions as to leave plenty of room for the imagination. So although there is a dead baby that’s needs taken care of, a twelve-year-old is less likely to visualize the entire process of a baby being alone for eight days and then found dead. Grant addresses the smell of the house, the fact that the main character has to clean it up and take care of the child, and the emotional trauma of the situation, but he doesn’t go into a gross CSI style detail that would move me to guide a twelve-year-old away from the series. That’s what keeps the book so intriguing rather than nauseating.
Well, that and the fact that I’m a sucker for dystopian societies and coming of age stories.
My recommendation if your kid picks this up: Read it WITH them, and be ready to discuss.
The Long-Awaited Lily
Well, it felt like a long time, because I was so anxious for it. In reality, Smith is quite the efficient authoress.
Title: Seed Savers
Author: S. Smith
I read the first installment of Seed Savers early this last summer. I loved it. I was so excited to find a new “undiscovered” young adult author and immediately blogged about it. Illegal gardening, fresh produce, dystopian society, kids on the run… how much more exciting could it possibly get? Way more, that’s how much.
With the arrival of Lily, I expected to get “the further adventures of Clare and Dante,” but what I got was much more. Lily, a side character in the first book, Treasure, tries to continue the mission of saving seeds in her hometown after the disappearance of Clare and Dante. Rather than getting “Treasure” all over again, a common fault in sequels in general, Lily is a book all its own and full of secrets, secrets, and more secrets. Not only was Lily hiding plants from Dante and Clare, she has a past she wasn’t even aware of, a past that could change everything.
Smith succeeded, again, in writing a fantastic and educational adventure that I cannot wait to share with my nieces and nephews, and later with my daughter. It is so fun and refreshing to read something new, something real, that doesn’t have anything to do with vampires, werewolves, or zombies. Although there is a time and place for such fantasy fiction for young adults, it’s nice to know that there are authors out there that have something more on the brain than the latest (recurring) fad that has swept the nation and the world.
Seed Savers is about using your brain, questioning the world around you and how it should be, becoming a better person, and making the world a better place. These are things every kid should be encouraged to do. And for the adults reading these books, it reminds us that many kids want to when they are given the chance.
Anakalian Whims 
Seed Savers – a series to be treasured
June 8, 2012 at 1:00 am (Education, Reviews) (books, Christian fiction, dystopian society, fiction, gardening, homeschooling, kids books, reviews, S. Smith, Seed Savers, self-sufficient living, series, social commentary, Treasure, young adult)
Author S. Smith has written the latest and greatest of young adult dystopian society novels. In the spirit of the previously mentioned Lowry novel and and Monica Hughes’ Invitation to the Game
, Smith has given us solid middle grade tale featuring a new (and somewhat real) futuristic threat – illegal gardening. It’s yet another great pre-cursor to students preparing to read Orwell’s 1984
. Educators everywhere should be aware of this rising star in children’s literature.
The detailed history of how this society came to be is part of its unique twist. Most dystopian society stories don’t spend a lot time telling you how it got this way, just that it did and people didn’t notice, the path somewhat alluded to but not specific. Smith helps point out the steps leading up to this future with factoids that suspciously resemble things that are happening in both the farmlands and corporate America. From living organism patents made legal in the 1980’s to genetically engineered seedlings, Smith spells out just exactly how this future (though a little outlandish in a society newly obsessed with being eco-friendly in its marketing) could quite possibly go from where it is now to the kind of United States described in the book (corporations and the government in bed with each other making trouble for the little people – Banks, anyone?… in combination with the idea that a government can make a plant illegal – marijuana comes to mind). Yet, she does this effortlessly, without killing the flow of the story.
I personally love social commentary presented through the art of fiction. (You like this too? Check out this site: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/371512?uid=3739920&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=56242603693). I find it compelling and quite frankly the best way to address particular situations that when written about in a nonfiction format becomes an irate rant. I love the way it personalizes events and characters in a book so quickly, in a way that the average story cannot do. Get under the skin of an art fanatic… make it impossible for art to be appreciated, collected, loved (if you’re not a reader, check out the movie Equilibrium, then again, if you’re not a reader what’s up with you reading my blog? What brought you here? Leave me a comment.)
Tug at the heartstrings of a gardener… attack the very core of their being by telling them in this reality, they can’t have one.
Needless to say, I loved it. S. Smith, you are brilliant, my dear, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. This one is going on loan to my nieces and nephews, is getting short listed on my very long list of required reading for my daughter who will one day be homeschooled. It will be the fun fiction to parallel our botany classes that week, the friendly reminder of why she will be taught to tend her own garden, and perhaps raise a chicken.
Buy Your Copy of Seed Savers Today!
Visit the author’s website here: http://authorssmith.com/
Want to start your own garden (before its too late!), check out Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Lu-7FIj_g
Also for fun, check out this blog: http://www.thisgardenisillegal.com/
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