The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games Trilogy

A few weeks ago, I received an email asking me if I would be interested in reviewing an ARC of  Smart Pop’s newest anthology, The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games Trilogy. I had used another Smart Pop anthology, Demigods and Monsters: Your Favorite Authors on Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series, when my 6th graders read Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, so I knew it would be a quality collection of essays.

I’m such a nerd, so needless to say I was thrilled when the ARC of The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games Trilogy arrived.  I immediately dove in and was not disappointed.  This is a collection of essays that examine the deeper issues within and without the Hunger Games trilogy.  I actually used a few of the essays with my classes already, as examples of well-written literary analyses.

Some of the authors included: Sarah Rees Brennan, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Mary Borsellino, Elizabeth M. Rees, Lili Wilkinson, Ned Vizzini, Carrie Ryan, Cara Lockwood, Terri Clark, Blythe Woolston, Sarah Darer Littman, Adrienne Kress, and Bree Despain.

Some of the essay titles?

• Your Heart is a Weapon the Size of Your Fist
• Panem et Circenses
• The Politics of Mockingjay
• The Inevitable Decline of Decadence (I used this one as an example in my classes!)
• Community in the Face of Tyranny

All of the essays are excellent.  You can read them straight through, or pick and choose the essays for you.  Each one is a fantastic example of analysis and will make you think deeply about the series as a whole.

Plus, this is a fantastic book to give to those who say the Hunger Games trilogy is nothing more than child’s play, a silly young adult book.  😉