2nd Draft

 The Hunger Games        

Liam O’Hara                                                                                      808

          Recently, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins has been at the frontier in the battle against banned books censors. This is happening because of the killing of children and other things that they say are not appropriate for middle school kids. The Hunger Games should not get banned because there are important lessons learned as well as some real life-like situations involved in this book.

            One reason that this book should not be banned from middle school libraries is because of the valuable lessons learned. In the book Katniss extremely loving to her sister. In the very beginning of the book, she comforts Prim on the day of the Reaping. Another is example is from the actual Reaping. “I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute” (Collins 22). By volunteering for Prim, she is basically sacrificing herself to save Prim. This act demonstrates her huge love of her sister. District 12 never has a winner of the Hunger Games. After volunteering, she knew she is going to face almost certain-death. What she did not know is that she would end up winning the whole thing. This shows that anything can happen, even against all odds. Katniss defied the odds by eventually winning the games.

            Believe it or not, there are some life-like situations in this book. For example, “I can’t shoot Cato without killing Peeta, too. He can’t kill Peeta without guaranteeing an arrow to his brain \“(Collins 336). This could be a life-like situation, just in a different setting. Imagine a gunman had a gun to a friend’s head, but you were about to call the cops. The gunman couldn’t hurt your friend without spending the rest of his life in prison. Censors cannot hide this from 8^th graders because this could happen to anyone.

            Parents go crazy thinking that this book will give bad influences to kids. What they don’t understand is that this is a fantasy world where forcing kids to kill each other is normal. In the world of “Panem”, the hunger games tournament came about as a punishment to the districts that rebelled against the Capitol. If anything, the characters in the book are completely against this. For example, Gale hates anything to do with the Capitol. He is being mean to the mayors daughter (Collins 22) because he thinks that all political people are like the Capitol. Peeta also is against the games. “To show that Capitol that they don’t own me. That I’m more than a piece of their Games” (Collins 142). This whole conversation with Katniss before the Games start was about defying the Capitol. Parents need to understand that unless their kid is very insecure, that they should be able to read this. Banning books can even give more interest in the book. “Being on the ‘banned’ list won’t do anything except increase curiosity and interest for the book. As they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity” (Doll 3) states Rita Meade. This shows that banning this book will make kids want to read it even more.  

            Overall, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins should not be banned from 8^thgrade libraries. This book teaches life lessons and is a favorite book among students. Banning this book would just gauge more interest to it. The next two books go away from killing, and more towards the rebellion towards a good cause against the capitol.

Work Cited

Ø Collins, Suzanne, and Phil Falco. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008.Print.

Ø Doll, Jen. "The Banned Books We Have Loved." The Atlantic Wire. Theatlanticwire, 12 Apr. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.