April 13, 2022
March Book Madness: We Have A Winner!
You read the books. You filled out your brackets. You voted weekly for a month. And now, all of that effort has paid off. We have a winner for March Book Madness! The one book to rule them all is…The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins!Taking inspiration from two classic short stories—”The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell—The Hunger Games centers around Katniss Everdeen, a young teen who is her family’s sole provider after her father dies and her mother sinks into her grief. The dystopian version of the U.S. in which the book is set has 13 districts, and Katniss belongs to District 12., the poorest of them all. She hunts for food with her trusty bow and arrows, and curses The Capitol under her breath all the while. The Capitol razed District 13 to the ground after its people staged a rebellion, and every year, it holds the Hunger Games as punishment and a reminder to the other districts not to step out of line. Each district sends two teenage tributes to compete in the televised games, where they form alliances, stalk each other in a giant forested dome, and fight until only one winner remains alive. When Katniss’s little sister Prim is chosen in District 12’s Hunger Games lottery, Katniss knows Prim is too young and fragile to survive. So she utters the now-iconic line, “I volunteer as tribute!”While the third book in the trilogy is a bit of a disappointment, the emotional power and vivid storytelling of this first book make it a deserving March Book Madness winner. Skip the film (and star Jennifer Lawrence’s scenery chewing) and dive into this wonderful story instead. Congratulations to Marinette student Sierra O’Mary for placing fourth across all four UWGB campuses! And congrats also to librarians Cheryl Cheron and Carli Reineke, and student advisor Bethany Welch, for placing in the top ten among UWGB faculty/staff.
—Tracy Fernandez Rysavy, Driftwood Advisor