The Hunger Games

My first impression:

I heard that this would be a great book to read, so I bought the trilogy of The Hunger games. I'm not much of a reader so I didn't know if I would ever finish these books, but I did. I thought it was easy to read, even for a non-reader. When I started I couldn't stop because it was so exiting. When I was half way trough I thought; 'Why would somebody make up such a story?'. So I read the part where the author explains where the story came from. I thought that was quite interesting. Susan Collins says she was switching channels and saw a reality show on television and the invasion of Iraq. She mixed them together and the idea of writing The Hunger games was born. I Like it that she mixed those contradictions in to one story. I think she wrote this to show us that we are living in an imperfect world where people suffer and other people make a fuss about a reality show. You don't always realize that this is going on right now. And I think you don't have to be aware of it all the time, but it is true and that is quite shocking if you think about it. 

In Class/theory:

We first talked about what we did last week and then started off with, how to offer books in your classes. We summed up the dos and don'ts of offering books. Offer a selection of books but not too many, the pupils need freedom of choice but limited and by choosing a book they don't have to do too much research. Besides that it's a good thing to use the 'drop everything and read' method in your class and reflect on the reading afterwards. I think this is a great idea, because the classes I teach, think English is quite difficult and they can read, but don't always know what they are reading. So if I use this in class, it will improve their reading skills even more. And maybe they will like it more after a while. But back to the in class discussion...We also talked about the stages Erikson uses to know in which state of mind a person is. This is something you could use to decide at what age a child can read certain books or see certain movies, but I will point this out in "age suitability/theory".

After that we talked about the books that we had to read and which similarities the books have. The stories all have a quest as their plot. The main point of every book is adventure, well except for Tracy Beaker I think. I didn't know that story, but from what I've heard I didn't think this book suited the other books very well. 

The stories are all pretty complex, there's a lot going on. In all of them are repetitive elements, like the Mockingjay in the Hunger games and the sign of respect. And at the end of the Hunger games, even in the third book, it hasn't got a very happy ending. But the other books haven't got a happy ending either. The reason for the open endings is that the writers want to end realistically, so you get doubts. That's what becoming an adult is all about...doubts.  After talking about this we had to create a mind map of the books. We chose to use the theory as a guide to create the mind map. We talked about the similarities these books have and we came to the conclusion that in all the books parents are absent, the characters are growing up and have to make their own decisions. The books are all adventurous and are, of course, all about the imperfect world. 

Age suitability/theory:

After we made the mind maps we had to decide what age the books are suitable for. If we use Erikson's theory on this I think The Hunger games is suitable for thirteen year old children. At the age of thirteen most of the children are in stage five, which means; Identity versus role confusion. Teens need to develop a sense of self and personal identity. During adolescence, children are exploring their independence and developing a sense of self. In this stage, children can feel confused about themselves and their identity. They will experiment with different roles, activities and behaviors.(Cherry, 2013)

This is what the whole Hunger games is about; exploring independence, developing a sense of self, confusion, experimenting different roles activities and behaviors. So Children will feel related to the characters in the book, therefor this is a good book for kids at the age of thirteen. 

I think we can say that the Hunger games is a young adult book. The Young Adult Service Division of the American Library Association defines the age of a young adult as twelve till eighteen years old. Young adult literature is the movie version of a great story. Gripping from the first line, never slows down, with all the slow parts edited out. It is crisp, lively and hip. (Morrissette, 2009) 

And I think The Hunger games is all of that! I loved it. 

Cherry, K. (2013, - -). About.com Psychology. Opgeroepen op September 22, 2013, van About.com: http://psychology.about.com/od/psychosocialtheories/a/identity-versus-confusion.htm

morrissette, F. (2009, August 1). suite 101. Opgeroepen op September 22, 2013, van suite 101: http://suite101.com/a/what-is-young-adult-fiction-a135786