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OLDER FICTION
Collins, Suzanne

Sunrise on the Reaping

400 pp. | Scholastic | March, 2025 | Trade ISBN 9781546171461 $27.99 | Ebook ISBN 9781546171478 $27.99
(2) YA "The upside of being born on reaping day is that you can sleep late on your birthday. It's pretty much downhill from there." This prequel to the original trilogy (The Hunger Games, rev. 9/08, and sequels) features Haymitch Abernathy, whom fans will recognize as the irascible mentor to later District Twelve tributes Katniss and Peeta. The reaping for the annual televised death game's Quarter Quell—double the number of tributes this time—takes place on his sixteenth birthday. One of the selected tributes tries to escape and is shot dead; chaos ensues, and Haymitch's efforts to protect his girlfriend, Leonore Dove, result in his being illegally reaped himself. Haymitch gets pulled into the familiar rituals of the Hunger Games, and while readers know quite a bit about the outcome of these Games, Collins successfully leverages that knowledge to surprise us with plot twists, unexpected revelations, and new background information. Haymitch has always been a tragic figure, and his character arc is handled particularly well here. Even more successful than earlier prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (rev. 9/20), this one rises to the level of the trilogy in terms of its examination of the political morality of both nations and individuals, particularly in relation to timely themes of autocracy and disinformation. This new installment should easily satisfy existing fans and bring new ones into the fold.
Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2025

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