As I write, Suzanne Collins’ teen novel The Hunger Games sits at the top of USA Today’s bestselling books lists, with the next three slots also occupied by novels in the trilogy – the twelfth week that they have appeared in the top 10, with the top slot occupied by the first book in the trilogy. With the release of the movie just over a week ago, to full houses and earning its place as the highest grossing non-sequel in history, this position at the top of the teen fiction league tables looks assured for some time. But why is it so captivating? What makes it such a compelling read for young people?
As almost all of the teenagers I know have read or are reading it, I bought the book myself last week to find out, and I too found it compelling. It is a relatively easy read, but fascinating and utterly gripping, both in its concept and in its execution – a word not to be used lightly in the context of a book which focuses on the fight to the death of children, forced, in a dystopian future, to compete each year in brutal televised games in retribution for a past (failed) rebellion. It is shockingly cruel in places, and yet immensely compassionate in others; above all, though, it portrays the adult world in a way to which many teenagers will relate, namely as a distant, remote, omnipotent autocracy which has ultimate – and uncaring – control over the actions of its young people.
As adults we often forget what it feels like to be a teenager, although if you ask most adults whether they would like to relive those teenage years again (without the benefit of hindsight), then they would refuse; being a teenager is a turbulent and difficult time in places, although it brings an intensity of emotion that can lead to huge highs and bonds for life as well. The turbulence is all down to biology and the radical rewiring that occurs during the post-pubescent years, but this rational explanation does not usually help make it easier for young people – or even their parents and other adults – to deal with the trials and tribulations of this time of their lives. The Hunger Games taps into this sense of difference and distance, and because it does so, it simultaneously makes for both essential and dangerous reading (and, now, viewing).
Adults should read The Hunger Games because it will teach them to see again the world through the eyes of a significant proportion of the population. They should also read it, though, because they need to help mediate the view of this world through their own eyes, and their own, more balanced, experience. They cannot allow some of the assumptions it makes about the world to go uncontested, for therein lies the danger for young people, who can risk becoming more and more isolated from a society which they need, and which needs them. Adults need to have the conversations with teenagers about why the cruelty is so wrong, and why and how rebellion can be justified; they need to take on board the fact that teenagers often – rightly – feel that adults do not understand them, but they also need to take on the task of showing teenagers how they can in fact understand and relate to them, if both teenager and adult communicate.
Read The Hunger Games. Prepare to be shocked. And then talk to a teenager about what it means to them, and help them to grow into stronger and better adults as a result.
