Before The Hunger Games

So, The Hunger Games is now available on video and I still haven’t seen it.  Grrr.  But, it has been one of my favorite trilogies in the past few years. For those of you looking to read beyond The Hunger Games, check out this slideshow of books that inspired the story. All 7 of these books are available in the library. Plus, they didn’t mention Shirley Jackson’s short-story “The Lottery,” which is wonderfully creepy. (The link will take you to a New Yorker magazine podcast of someone reading the story.)

And today’s spotlight book is related. The Maze Runner series by James Dashner has some similarities to The Hunger Games. The first book is the story of a group of kids who are living in The Glade. They don’t know how they got there. They don’t remember anything before they got there. They just try to survive. And each day, a group of them will leave The Glade to enter the maze that is out side the walls. The maze changes everyday, and no one knows how to solve it. Then Thomas and Teresa arrive and things start changing without warning. There are four books in the series, The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure, and the prequel, which just came out, The Killing Order. All four books are available in the library.