The Reality of the Good and Bad: A Glance at Suzanne Collins’s Life and Works In our world the media rules and it tends to sugarcoat most things. For Suzanne Collins this is not what she wants. In her novel, Catching Fire, she wrote “At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead. The hard thing is finding the courage to do it” (Collins 118). This quote shows Collins’s idea that even with horrible things going on you should face them instead of hiding. Collins doesn’t want everyone to ignore the bad in life but to see it and realize just how bad it is, and she tries to show this in her many writings and accomplishments. This much loved author was born on August 10, 1962 in Hartford, Connecticut. She …show more content…
She also wrote for more shows like The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, Little Bear, Oswald, Santa, Baby!, who she did with her friend Peter Bakalian, and she was also a freelancer for Wow! Wow! Wubbzy” (“Suzanne Collins”). In 2003 she released her book Gregor the Overlander. It has an 11 year-old boy who coexists with rats and cockroaches in New York City. The novel was noticed for its “vivid setting and sense of adventure, and four additional installments (2004-07) in what became known as The Underland Chronicles soon followed”. Even though the audience is for adolescents, Collins still wrote about dark things such as genocide and biological warfare. She did this because she was “influenced by the lessons her father had taught her as a military historian and a Vietnam War historian” …show more content…
People should read her novels to get a glimpse of the cruelty in not only the fictional world but in reality. In an interview Suzanne was asked the question, “How does war connect to your concerns about TV, especially reality TV,” and her response was, “…There’s this potential for desensitizing the audience so that when they see real tragedy playing on the news, it doesn’t have the impact it should…And I think it’s very important not just for young people, but for adults to make sure they’re making the distinction. Because the young soldiers dying in the war in Iraq, it’s not going to end at the commercial break. It’s not something fabricated, it’s not a game. It’s your life” (Q&A with Hunger Games Author”). She clearly wants to make this world a better place one young reader at a
The novels in this series are published by Clark, through her publishing company, Wahida Clark Presents Publishing Company LLC. She started the company after serving a
In her defensive she shows how exploiting our personal lives can cause problems and crimes that are not wanted. Sure, it helps us try to catch terrorism but in exchange it also leaves us defenseless against each other. Not everyone you think is on our side is on our side, especially those around
This book is split into sections as Malala moves through her life story. There are captions for every illustration which explain what is happening. The author did achieve her goal for this book by allowing readers to discover who Malala truly is and what her biggest dream is (to have education available to every child in the
Both awe-inspiring and indescribable is life, the defined “state of being” that historians and scholars alike have been trying to put into words ever since written language was first created. And in the words of one such intellectual, Joshua J. Marine, “Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”. Essentially, he is comparing life to a bowl of soup. Without challenges or hardship into which we can put forth effort and show our potential, it becomes a dull and flavorless broth. But for characters in novels like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the difficulties and trials that we all must face can transfigure the mundane liquid mixture of existence into a vibrant and fulfilling gumbo. The protagonists of these works are two strong-willed and highly admirable women, who prevail in the face of overwhelming odds stacked in everyone’s favor but theirs. In their trying periods of isolation brought about by cold and unwelcoming peers, particularly men, they give their lives meaning by simply pushing forward, and living to tell the tale.
Young adult fiction is a unique area in its own way, and one that incorporates forms of lives not common in society. The book, Maze Runner is a typical example of adult fiction in which the author presents scenarios involving various forms of life, which readers can learn from and apply to their own, as well. To begin with, by reading this book in class, students will not only learn about magic and terror, but also about sorrow, bravery, friendship as well as suffering in attempts to find redemption. Everything about this book is fictional but subsequent events from previous ones make things even more real. In the beginning, fiction is achieved when the main character, Thomas, wakes up in some metal box, but has no memory of the person he is, only remembering his name (Dashner 1).The place in which the boys live is covered in high wall and called the glade. Additionally, outside the maze are monsters called grievers, which can make a person undergo the process of ‘changing’ upon being stung. The fictitious nature of this book...
writes her stories with the intent to shock her readers into seeing the truth behind human
It is impossible to avoid unpleasant situations throughout an individual’s lifetime, especially if they are a result of bad luck or another combination of events beyond one’s control. Misfortune however can also be self-inflicted. This particular case is apparent in Margaret Lawrence’s The Stone Angel, a novel in which the protagonist, Hagar Shipley’s continuous misfortune is a direct result of several of her character flaws. An exaggerated sense of pride, a lack of compassion and empathy and an inability to communicate clearly are Hagar’s most prominent character flaws, and perpetually bring about misfortune.
In one of her interviews, Suzanne Collins told that her father was an Air Force officer who served in Vietnam, though he was not drafted. In her novel, she portrayed Panem’s families watching the reaping either in person or on television, waiting for the fate of their friends and loved ones, their children, to be determined by a drawing. In her article “Communal Spectacle”, Gretchen Koenig states “Collins seems to turn our own historical memory of the Vietnam War into a comment on our own capacity for, and attraction to, violence” (Koenig
of the book, Janie resents her grandmother for “living” her life for her and planning her future. To find out what will happen in a persons future, they need to live their life on their own an...
In her life, she has overcame obstacles that most people in life most likely would not overcome such as rape, abuse, and even losing her daughter on Christmas Day. Despite of all she has gone through in her life, she is determine to help people to their lives better.
...She writes of the type of person that one can only hope exists in this world still. The message of her writing and philosophy is contained in a single phrase from the novel: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine,” (731). This is an inspiration, awakening an inner voice and drive that impels each person to do their absolute best. It implores the soul of the reader to awaken, to become the ideal of the human spirit, and to rise until it can rise no higher. It is a call to anyone with reason, anyone with the strength to be an Atlas, and it is reminding him or her of their duty to live up to the individual potential. For as long as there are those who would hear the message, there will still be hope for mankind.
The quote suggests that unfortunate events happen not because of destiny but because of the fault in characters. The three main teenage characters in this book suffer from a fate, which has in no way been caused by their actions but rather their destiny. Unlike the other characters Augustus fights to not let his destiny impact his choices, he strives to be seen as more than his illness. Augustus goes through the same struggles as any normal teenager and also the struggles of a cancer patient. Though his fate won the battle, till his death he fought being defined by his illness.
Throughout the history of storytelling, there have always been storybook characters that inspire and motivate young readers to become more engaged and knowledgeable about the struggles that some people go through. Reading has always been a pastime of mine; while reading I collect new friends in wonderful places that otherwise I could only dream of. Each of these characters that I have befriended and connected with over the years, has shaped my personality in some way or another, and choosing just one seems an impossible task. Although women’s rights have skyrocketed in the past century, overall the world is still predominately male-orientated, but the world of books has no bounds for inspirational women. Countless authors have written books with strong female leads, most of them fiction, but nonetheless inspirational. When choosing the most influential to me, I could start by writing about the character that first allowed me to immerse myself in the world of the written language, Nancy Drew. Or I could write about the character that allowed me to feel comfortable with being unique and intelligent, Hermione Granger. But I won’t go into those clichés, the book character that has inspired me more than the heroines starring in the hundreds of books that I’ve read is real life Super Girl, Malala Yousafzai.
she can be seen as a representative of the victims of war, a complex human face on the backdrop
At the beginning of the novel, McCarthy introduces us to the Kid, who is pale and thin, and his parents. “His folks are known for hewers of wood and drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster”, which is a fancy word for teacher (McCarthy 3). His “mother, dead these fourteen years, did incubate in her own bosom the creature who would carry her off” (McCarthy 3). The Kid can neither read nor write and he already has the taste for violence. When he is fourteen he decides to run away and heads west as far as Memphis with no knowledge of what to expect and no real survival skills.