Saturday, June 6, 2009

48 Hour Reading Challenge -- update #2


I've now finished book 3. My total reading/blogging time so far is about 8 1/2 hours. Book three took a while but boy was it worth it. How can I possibly wait until September for the sequel? Book three was:

The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins

I know just about everybody on the planet has read this book, so I'm not going to spend time I could be reading on a summary of it. Just a few thoughts . . .

I was initially hesitant to read this book, even though everyone who had raved about it. The beginning of it just reminded me too much of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," a short story I read in 8th grade and which I truly hated. The idea that sane people could and would kill other people as a tribute is truly horrifying, much more so than most horror movies around. And I found myself equally disgusted by society of The Hunger Games. In fact, while I found the plot and the characters engrossing, I had a hard time believing that such a society could ever exist. But then I remember that Hitler's Germany was real and I guess anything is possible.

This is not going to be a difficult book to get my middle schoolers to read. In fact, I think that the two copies I have are not going to be enough.

2 comments:

Carol H Rasco said...

Thank you for your post on The Hunger Games...you give me encouragement to read it. I am learning so much through the Challenge, particularly about books for middle grade and high school students.

I hope you are enjoying your 20th anniversary celebration!

Amy Planchak Graves said...

I read Hunger Games for the first time for the 48hbc, too. I may be predisposed to hypercriticism when it comes to things that are over-hyped, but I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is/was about.