The Hunger Games

In District 12, Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old taught to hunt by her father before he died in a mine explosion, volunteers as the female tribute when her younger sister’s name is drawn. Her fellow tribute is Peeta, a baker’s son who once helped her when her family was starving. Rooting for her back home is Gale, her longtime hunting companion who has begun to complain bitterly about the Capitol’s oppression. Katniss is preoccupied primarily with her own survival; for without her, how will her mother and sister Prim survive? But with the coaching of reluctant, drunken mentor Haymitch, the only District 12 tribute ever to win the Games; the subtly subversive work of Cinna, her stylist; and the help of unlikely allies, Katniss becomes an inadvertent symbol of a growing rebellion.