NEW YORK, May 19, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Scholastic
(NASDAQ: SCHL), the global children's publishing, education and
media company, today released a new interview with Suzanne Collins, author of the worldwide
bestselling Hunger Games series. On the eve of the publication of
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, on sale today, author
Suzanne Collins spoke to
David Levithan, VP, Publisher and
Editorial Director at Scholastic, and one of her editors, about the
making of the book.
David Levithan: I'll start
with the two questions I'm sure most readers will want to ask: Did
you always plan to return to Panem after the trilogy with a book
set sixty-four years earlier? And if not, what made you return to
the story in this way?
Suzanne Collins: Here's how it
works now. I have two worlds, the Underland (the world of The
Underland Chronicles series) and Panem (the world of The Hunger
Games). I use both of them to explore elements of just war theory.
When I find a related topic that I want to examine, then I look for
the place it best fits. The state of nature debate of the
Enlightenment period naturally lent itself to a story centered on
Coriolanus Snow.
Focusing on the 10th Hunger Games also gave me the
opportunity to tell Lucy Gray's
story. In the first chapter of The Hunger Games, I make reference
to a fourth District 12 victor. Katniss doesn't seem to know
anything about the person worth mentioning. While her story isn't
well-known, Lucy Gray lives on in a
significant way through her music, helping to bring down Snow in
the trilogy. Imagine his reaction when Katniss starts singing "Deep
in the Meadow" to Rue in the arena. Beyond that, Lucy Gray's legacy is that she introduced
entertainment to the Hunger Games.
DL: I have to ask—when you wrote that reference in the first
book, did you have any sense of who that fourth victor might
be?
SC: Yes, but she's evolved a lot since then.
DL: What was it like to rewind the world you'd built by
sixty-four years? What were some of the touchstones you used to
understand what this version of Panem would be?
SC: I really enjoyed going back in time to an earlier version of
Panem and visiting the reconstruction period that followed the Dark
Days. I thought a lot about the period after the Civil War here in
the United States and also the
post–World War II era in Europe.
People trying to rebuild, to live their daily lives in the midst of
the rubble. The challenges of food shortages, damaged
infrastructure, confusion over how to proceed in peacetime. The
relief that the war has ended coupled with the bitterness toward
the wartime enemy. The need to place blame.
DL: What about the early Hunger Games?
SC: Even as the victor in the war, the Capitol wouldn't have had
the time or resources for anything elaborate. They had to rebuild
their city and the industries in the districts, so the arena really
is an old sports arena. They just threw in the kids and the weapons
and turned on the cameras. The 10th Hunger Games is
where it all blows wide open, both figuratively and literally.
DL: What was it like to have to dial back a character you
created in his late maturity and then to rethink him as an
eighteen-year-old?
SC: Well, I thought about Wordsworth's line, "The Child is
father of the Man." The groundwork for the aging President Snow of
the trilogy was laid in childhood. Then there's Locke, who's all over this book, with his
theory of tabula rasa, or blank slate, in which we're all products
of our experiences. Snow's authoritarian convictions grew out of
the experiences of his childhood, as did his complicated
relationships with mockingjays, food, the Hunger Games, District
12, District 13, and women. So, you rewind and plant the seeds.
But given all that, you still need to leave room for Snow's
personality. Is he a product of nature or nurture? Everyone of his
generation experienced trauma, loss, and deprivation. And yet
Sejanus, Tigris, Lucy Gray, and
Lysistrata turned out very differently.
For whatever reason, Snow has a very controlling personality.
Then he experiences one of the most out-of-control emotions,
falling in love. It turns out to be a bad
combination. #END OF INTERVIEW
ABOUT THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will revisit the
world of Panem sixty-four years before the events of The Hunger
Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the Tenth
Hunger Games.
With a World English first printing of 2.5 million
copies, THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES is
being released today, simultaneously in print, digital and audio
formats by Scholastic in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland, Australia, and New
Zealand. In addition, translation rights to The
Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes have been sold by Stimola
Literary Studio into 35 territories to date.
THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES
May 19, 2020 | Scholastic Press | Ages 12 and
up
ISBN: 978-1338635171 HC| ISBN: 9781338635195 Audio | ISBN:
9781338635188 ebook
ABOUT SUZANNE COLLINS AND THE HUNGER
GAMES
Bestselling author SUZANNE COLLINS first made her mark in
children's literature with the New
York Times bestselling Underland
Chronicles fantasy series for middle grade
readers. She continued to explore the effects of war and
violence on those coming of age with The Hunger Games Trilogy.
The Hunger Games (2008) was an instant bestseller, appealing
to both teen readers and adults. It was called "addictive" by
Stephen King
in Entertainment Weekly, and "brilliantly plotted and
perfectly paced" by John Green in
the New York Times Book Review. The book appeared on
the New York
Times bestseller list for more than 260 consecutive
weeks (more than five consecutive years), and there are more than
100 million copies of all three books in the trilogy─The Hunger
Games, Catching
Fire (2009), and Mockingjay (2010)─in
print and digital formats worldwide. Foreign publishing
rights for The Hunger Games Trilogy have been sold in 54
languages to 52 territories to date. In 2012 Lionsgate
launched the first of four films based on the novels, starring
Jennifer Lawrence. To date, the
franchise has earned nearly $3
billion at the worldwide box office.
In 2010 Suzanne Collins was named to the TIME 100 list as well
as the Entertainment Weekly Entertainers of the Year
list; in 2011 Fast Company named her to their 100
Most Creative People in Business; and in 2016 she was presented the
2016 Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary
Community for exemplifying the unique power of young people's
literature to change lives and to create lifelong book lovers. It
was the first time the Guild presented its annual award to a YA
author. The Atlantic called Hunger Games heroine
Katniss Everdeen, "the most important female character in
recent pop culture history," and TIME Magazine named Katniss to its
list of "The 100 Most influential People Who Never Lived." On The
Hunger Games trilogy, The New York
Times Book Review wrote, "At its best the
trilogy channels the political passion of 1984, the
memorable violence of A Clockwork Orange, the
imaginative ambience of The Chronicles of
Narnia and the detailed inventiveness
of Harry Potter." For
more information about The Hunger Games, visit
http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/hungergames.
ABOUT SCHOLASTIC
For more information about
Scholastic, visit our media room at:
http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/.
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