Suzanne Collins Talks New ‘Starvation Video games’ Prequel ‘Dawn on the Reaping’

Disclaimer: This submit contains spoilers for The Starvation Video games collection by Suzanne Collins.

Suzanne Collins’ beloved YA dystopian collection, The Starvation Video games, first arrived over a decade in the past with the 2008 novel of the identical identify. Following Katniss Everdeen, a youngster who should take part in a televised occasion the place children combat to the demise, the collection, together with 2009’s Catching Fireplace, 2010’s Mockingjay and 2023’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, has offered over 100 million books globally.

Now the franchise is again with Dawn on the Reaping, revealed Tuesday, March 18, by Scholastic. The novel, set practically 25 years earlier than The Starvation Video games kicks off, follows Katniss’ mentor Haymitch Abernathy as he participates within the fiftieth Starvation Video games, referred to as the Second Quarter Quell.

In a new interview with Scholastic SVP, Writer and Editorial Director David Leviathan, Collins mentioned that it was engaging to return to Haymitch’s character, particularly after writing Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel novel that facilities on Panem’s future president Coriolanus Snow.

“After touring with Coriolanus, who’s endlessly manipulative and controlling, it was a aid to put on each Haymitch’s voice and character. He has a a lot better capability for hope and love and pleasure. Greater than Coriolanus — or Katniss, for that matter,” Collins mentioned.

The creator additionally famous that when writing Dawn, she thought-about retaining Haymitch as an grownup character earlier than she scrapped the thought for her readers.

“I performed round with it each methods, however I discovered that youthful Haymitch speaks on to the YA viewers the very best,” Collins mentioned. “An older individual reflecting again on their youth or shifting into a toddler’s perspective is tougher to tug off.”

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“I don’t assume it modified my understanding of him — Haymitch continues to be Haymitch — however it gave me room to discover his earlier journey,” the creator continued. “Like his relationship to Katniss through Burdock. What it meant to tackle his greatest buddy’s little one and see her by way of the struggle and develop into her surrogate father. It was good to have a while with that angle.”

And although The Starvation Video games is now a popular culture mainstay, each in guide type and thru the blockbuster film franchise starring Jennifer Lawrence, Collins wasn’t daunted by bringing a brand new model of the story to readers.

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“It’s one other technique to method a narrative, however it has its benefits. If you happen to take a look at Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, we be taught within the prologue that the lovers will die,” Collins mentioned. “So that you’re actually not targeted on what’s going to occur, however on how or why it occurs.”

“In the identical method, you realize Haymitch turns into a victor and Snow kills his family members, however you don’t know the occasions that result in these ends,” Collins added. “How? Why? The place? What? Who? It’s important to learn the guide to seek out out.”

Dawn on the Reaping is now accessible, wherever books are offered.