In the theme of celebrating women this month, I have recently started to get into The Hunger Games novels, especially The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, now that it is also a motion picture movie. I always wanted to investigate the author, Suzanne Collins, and to see how a woman of her writing brilliance made such an impact on so many people worldwide. She is well-known to many people around the world and has the power to write and impact others in a positive way.
Suzanne Collins is not just an author of hit novels but started as a writer for children’s television shows. She mostly worked with Nickelodeon and did some projects with PBS Kids when she was first starting to write professionally in 1991. She then broke off from doing kids’ television and started writing fantasy and science fiction novels. Her first novels were based on inspiration from Alice in Wonderland and titled The Underland Chronicles. This series was five books long and was a New York Times best-selling series.
In September of 2008, the first Hunger Games novel was released. This series was inspired by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. She also took inspiration from her personal life of her father who was in the Air Force. This allowed insight into what it is like to feel the effects of war, dealing with poverty, and being without a father for long periods of time. Later, the second book of the series, Catching Fire, was released, followed by Mockingjay, the third book in the series. 14 months after release, 1.5 million copies of the first two novels were printed in North America alone. She was then contacted by Lions Gate Entertainment who asked to do a film adaptation of the first book. This is how The Hunger Games movies were introduced and how they are still being released in the present day. On top of her busy schedule, she was awarded Time magazine’s “Most Influential Individual” award and won multiple awards through Scholastic Press. In recent years, she has created the novel I enjoy the most at the moment, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. This novel was released on May 19, 2020, and was said to be a prequel to the series set 64 years before the events of the first Hunger Games novel. In October of 2019, the film adaptation was put into motion and released on November 17, 2023.
I personally look up to her for inspiration whenever I write in my free time or for projects for class. She is an amazing woman and I have watched all the Hunger Games-affiliated movies. I am still reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and I love the novel (so far more than the
movie). She is one of my idols and I am excited to see what she does next to impact the lives of others who enjoy reading her work. I definitely recommend reading some of her novels because they are easy to read and the events can surprise you.
References
1. Thomas, S. Suzanne Collins: the woman behind the Hunger Games trilogy. The Knight Crier. https://www.knightcrier.org/entertainment/2014/11/12/suzanne-collins-the-woman-behind-the-hunger-games-trilogy/ (accessed 2024-03-07).
2. Suzanne Collins -. Suzannecollinsbooks.com. https://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/ (accessed 2024-03-07).
3. Wikipedia Contributors. Suzanne Collins. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Collins (accessed 2024-03-07).