Post #3

The Idea: How would you survive if placed in a situation like the tributes had to in the arena? What precautions would you take to ensure your survival? How would you handle the stress and pressure under being forced to involve yourself in the deaths of 24 people? Would you rely on sponsors to survive, or would you create your own destiny? Which path would you choose, if you had to: hunter, or gatherer?

Why: One of the biggest settings, likely the most widely known setting, of the book is the Arena. The main goals behind the arena are survival, killing, and cooperation. To survive, you require food. You need to kill. You need to cooperate with teammates. One big part of acquiring food is gathering. You have to know what you're looking for, what you find, and how to prepare the food you can find. Hunting doesn't just pertain to animals. In the Arena, you have to be a ruthless, cold-blooded killer if you want to survive by going offensive and hunting down your enemies. With this survey, people have the choice of survival based upon murder, or survival based upon hiding and thriving. The survey will provide you several questions that will prod and probe your brain and the answers you input will cause an output of results based on the path of Hunter or Gatherer. This is a good way to provide fan interaction with the novel because everyone wants to know how they would fare if placed in a situation like the Hunger Games. It's not every day you are forced to volunteer your life for your sibling, leaving your mother, that sibling, your loved ones and friends behind to fight for your life in a battle royale with 24 other combatants just as determined to win as you. The survey not only provides insight into the world of Panem, but insight as well into your own mind and what your morals and ethics are like. Some people might be too moral to kill, some may be too bloodthirsty not to. It takes a certain kind of person to kill or watch 24 others get killed in the name of entertainment. 

Post #2: What is a book?

A book is a soul. The book as an object is a mere material used in furthering your knowledge, but the internal values of the book are immense, and intangible. You can't just imagine what the story is telling you, and picture it in your head. That would make reading much more of a chore than it may or may not already be. You have to be, as much of a cliché as it may be, one with the book. You have to let the book take hold of you, steal your mind. Books aren't just a story, they're mini adventures. All the author wants to do is to bring you along with him/her on their fictional or nonfictional memory. How many times have you read an entire book and not, at some point throughout the story, been completely and entirely drawn in to the reading?