"May the odds be ever in your favor!"

Part I

Back in 2010, our family began reading Suzzane Collin's bestselling Hunger Games novels. All three of them are family favorites, because of their depth of intelligent content and excellent writing style. Despite the greatness thereof, our family was rather slow to except them - Dad read the first book sometime in 2010, and liked it so much that he bought the second and third ones at full price at Costco - something that he usually NEVER does (he prefers to buy books secondhand, sometimes bringing home a yard of books from a thrift store when the prices are good).

Later, in September, he took Wesley out to lunch at Garcia's (a nearby Mexican restaurant) after a Boy Scout campout and explained to him the thesis of the books. Nothing more was done until the middle of the October, when Wesley spotted Book One lying out on a shelf at about 6:00 on a Friday evening and, snatching it up, began to read. At 2:00 the next morning Mom and Dad made him finally go to bed. Within an hour of waking up the next morning he had finished the book. Though he lost speed, Wesley still managed to finish the trilogy by the end of the next week.

Mom was the third to read the books. After being recommended to her by Dad, she read them slowly, as befits her busy and devoted lifestyle, finding time here and there until she had completed reading the books. Kaylin and Ethan remained aloof from that excellent specimen of a disturbing dystopic future until Ethan, finding himself bored one night in late 2011, asked Wesley for a book to read. Wesley brought him Orson Scott Card's sci-fi book Ender's Game, (a truly excellent read for everyone, I hope you will be interested in it as well) and after reading it discovered he liked it very much.

He consequently returned to Wesley for something more to read, trusting him because of the first incident, and Wesley offered him Book One of The Hunger Games. Though Ethan liked the book very much, and displayed remarkable insight in his analysis of the characters and society thereof, he remained rather ignorant of the authorship. Several days into the book (for Ethan reads more slowly than Wesley) he believed it was written by Card, this unusual belief being held for no reason at all, and when he found out the error of his strange thought, was quick to blame Wesley, as if he required help to read the name of Collins which was emblazoned on the book's wonderful cover. After finishing Book One, Ethan searched for the next two all over the house but found only the dust jackets. He looked and asked more rarely and infrequently until the world got caught up in the excitement over the movie.

Kaylin was the last to read The Hunger Games. Not until winter of 2012 did she open the cover - the eminent threat being that if she did not read up she would miss the movie, whose release date was the 23rd of March, which just happens to be the second anniversary of Obama's signing of his health care law, and which movie Mom and Dad were planning on taking their three older children to see in a much-anticipated family event. Finally, with Ethan and Kaylin both excited to read on, Mom and Dad is desperation decided to borrow the Second and Third Books from a friend, only to find out that this very same friend had borrowed them from us and we had forgotten! Kaylin handily beat Ethan to read them, having read Book 3 in an incredulous four-and-a-half hours. Ethan proceeded much more slowly, and did not finished the third book before watching the movie. After watching the movie, he lost much interest and is now moving along at a snail's pace. However, he has promised some sort of school assignment regarding the book, so the reader of this blog can be sure he will finished before the school year is out.

Part II

 Lionsgate released their film adaptation of Book One of The Hunger Games on the 23rd of March, 2012. Our family is not a fanatic willing to stand in line for a long time, so we attended none of the early showings. We did, however, hear some of the silly gossip about the movie, of which we were not fully able to appreciate the ridiculousness of until we had seen the film ourselves. One Wednesday, March 28, 2012 we attended a 7:30 showing of the movie and the local Harkin's Theatres. We all agreed that it was a great movie, with excellent casting and cinematography.

But, knowing the true depth and breadth of the books, we could only feel sorry for those poor misled people who would watch a movie and think they had gotten the full story! We addressed the issue in more detail in later family conversations. We, as a family of book-readers, knew the full story and loved it, but recognized that in order to present the full story in the film, a number of things would need to be added. A few we decided one were that:

 Madge and the history of the Mockingjay Pin would have to be shown.

 The fact that Katniss feeds her family with the game she hunts.

Katniss trading at the Hob with peacekeepers and others.

Haymitch falling off of the platform at the Reaping.

More detail on Cinna and why he is the friend of Katniss.

More attention to the character and motives of Katniss.

 Despite all of these seeming absences, we as rational and literary people realize that in reality there is no absence at all - the full story of "The Hunger Games" is contained in the Books thereof and a film is simply a work of art based on that story. A movie no more IS the story in that book than is the cover-picture of the book. If one want's to have knowledge, one must read, and there isn't any way around it. -Wesley