Just Finished Reading… Sunrise On The Reaping(Hunger Games). New York: Scholastic, 2025

 

This is the fifth Hunger Games book, a prequel to the original trilogy. I haven’t got around to reading the fourth book, The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, which is also a prequel, a back story to the trilogy’s villain.

In case you haven’t read the trilogy, the premise is a future America(Panem) in which there had been a rebellion against the Capitol and, as a punishment,  all the Districts have to send teenagers as tributes to fight and die in the Games, a process known as the Reaping. Only one will survive, though in the first book, the heroine, Katniss Everdeen, gets her fellow tribute, Peeta Mellark, spared by saying, in front of the entire nation, that they are in love. That embarrasses the Capitol enough to work. There are hints that this premise is based on Greek mythology, in which tributes go to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur. 

Sunrise On The Reaping  is the back story of Haymitch Abernathy, the town drunk who won his Hunger Games and has been drinking to handle his PTSD. The middle-aged Haymitch was mentor to Katniss and Peeta during their Hunger Games. In this book, he is sixteen and rebellious. The title is based on his promise to his girlfriend, Lenore Dove, to try to end the Hunger Games for good, so that there will never again be a “sunrise on the Reaping.”  The older Haymitch has no friends or family; the teenage Haymitch has both. In fact, one of his friends is Burdock Everdeen, future father to Katniss. 

We know Haymitch will win the Games and survive, but there is a lot more to it than that. He has made a major enemy, President Coriolanus Snow. 

We meet some characters, apart from Snow, who will appear in future stories. Effie Trinket, who will later travel to the districts to collect the young tributes, is one. At this stage, she is just the older sister of another character, who helps the District 12 tributes, who have been neglected. Plutarch Heavensbee, a major character in The Hunger Games, is the photographer and propaganda film maker. 

Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” is quoted a lot, as Lenore Dove’s favourite poem. It connects with her name in Haymitch’s mind. 

I won’t do spoilers here, but I had a hard time keeping dry eyes and by the end of the book, I absolutely understood why, apart from the Games themselves, Haymitch suffered PTSD. 

You really need to have read the original trilogy to get the most out of this book, but up to you. All I can say is that it is every bit as good. 

Available in all good bookshops and websites. I hear that there will be a film.