Why a Wisconsin college has chosen a young adult novel for a community read…

    I tend to steer clear of bestselling books on this blog because they’re so well reviewed and blogged while smaller literary books that contain themes of social justice have a chance to draw discussion and perhaps even open a few minds to multiple perspectives. Keeping in mind the philosophy of drawing readers into discussion about themes of social justice, though, I recently suggested an extremely popular young adult book to be considered for a college-wide community read at my Wisconsin college, Mount Mary. That book, The Hunger Games, was selected this week as the spring read.  It was considered against an intensely personal and compelling memoir about faith, a novel about Mexican-American border differences and some additional outstandingly literary novels.

    The Hunger Games was selected because this dystopian story of a girl named Katniss, pitted against 11 others adolescents in a fight to the death, is an opportunity to look at our community’s perceptions of survival. This is a way to discuss our own college’s mission of educating people in social justice leadership. The novel drew many members of the committee into the reality-based Hunger games in a way to encourage questions about the way our culture has created an entire industry of reality shows that entertain viewers while make sport of personal struggle and failure and – yes — success.

While initial reactions to a summary of the novel had led committee members to ask if we wanted something this violent as our read, I admit to pure pleasure when the colleague who called this into question admitted she’d borrowed the sequels Catching Fire and Mockingjay because she needed to know how it all turned out.

But as compelling as the plot proved to be, the The Hunger Games engaged committee readers in animated discussions of how far a person is willing to go to survive. We all believe it begs us each to ask the question, at what stage do we close ourselves off to compassion, love and human connectedness. It opens the door to ask how violent we each might become if we were put in a position to kill or be killed.

The novel engaged our hearts and forced our imaginations to go into a world that focused on a singularly violent and compelling struggle. It made us wonder about our own lives and culture and just how much of our souls, our humanity, we’re willing to close off or give away in order to maintain our current lifestyles. The book will be read by students who range in age from traditional college students and senior citizens. Faculty and staff and administrators will take part in the community read. Alumna and their families will also take part. We’re all hoping to attend the film that opens in March and we’ll be creating activities and events including book talks that will encourage the entire community to search inside their imaginations and hearts to define their own humanity and to, perhaps, reconsider how they respond the next time they hear of someone struggling to survive. It should lead to some gripping discussions that have the added benefit of opening a whole world of young adult reading to multiple generations.