I didn't want to debate that point with her, and I won't debate it here. I'll just say that these books are good and that all the anticipation focused on the August 24th release of Mockingjay, the final book in the series, is well deserved. The audiobook version, from Scholastic Audio, launches on Playaway simultaneously with the print edition, and for fans of Katniss and Peeta, it will not disappoint.
Listening to the audio, I was at first slightly put off by the rather adult tone of narrator Carolyn McCormick's voice. She sounded a bit too grown up to convince me it was the voice of 17-year-old Katnis, the book's hero and narrator. But then I tried to put myself in the position of the intended audience. Forget what I want -- isn't the voice of a grown woman exactly how an above-average 14-year-old wants to imagine the sound of a strong, powerful 17-year-old? OK, problem solved. So here, for what little they are worth, are a few equally irrelevant impressions from a listener who falls decidedly outside of the target demographic:
- The third book begins with Katniss' return to the ash-covered remains of District 12. It was there she was born and raised to be a "tribute" offered up for "The Hunger Games" -- the futuristic blood sport organized by the authoritarian rulers of what seems to have once been North America.
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For the first few minutes of shuffling through the ashes, I thought it was kind of like Cormac McCarthy's The Road For Kiddies, but then I got with the program.
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In the far-distant future, after convulsive wars, decades-long "dark times," the obliteration of democracy, and near-total ecological collapse, our descendants will have forgotten all about J.K. Rowling, and they won't realize how goofy-sounding their names are. Some will have names that hint at Roman antiquity like Caesar Flickerman, emcee of the Hunger Games. Or Plutarch Heavensbee the Head Gamemaker. Or twin cameramen Castor and Pollux.
- Most folks, however, will have names that are just plain old goofy -- like Katniss Everdeen or Finnick Odair. Lucius Malfoy and Kingsley Shacklebolt would fit right in to this world.
- And, in the far-distant, post-apocalyptic world of tomorrow, no one will even think it's funny that a boy with a name pronounced "pita" comes from a family that ran a bakery. That's how bad things are going to be in the future.
As I said, none of this matters to the target audience, and there is plenty of truly good stuff for them to chew on, some of it pretty heavy-duty.
Famous as a child-gladiator, Katniss is called upon to become the symbol of an armed rebellion against the tyrannical central government, an assignment she accepts grudgingly and with suspicion. Being a bratty teenager is hard enough as it is without also having to figure out in just whose game it is that she is being used as a pawn.
There's a lot for her (and young readers) to ponder, including: standards of beauty -- appearance vs. reality; whether telling the truth is always the right thing; the use of deadly force and the high price of killing whether it is justified or not; retribution and revenge, the role of propaganda in social movements; and the assimilation of outsiders and refugees.
Authority is not something that is self-evidently good in this book, and, in fact, it gets questioned and flouted at nearly every turn. Good and evil both come into play, but neither is without complexity, ambiguity, and even self-contradiction. It's pretty messy in fact -- just like real life. Forget about the far distant future -- just like now.
Young Katniss has a lot of unfinished business to take care of in this book, and it's no wonder that her many fans are counting down the days till they can see how it all plays out.
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Posted by David Perrotta, MLIS
Playaway Senior Content Strategist
Twitter: david_perrotta
