# The Hunger Games

**Author:** Suzanne Collins
**Lexile:** 810L
**Grade range:** Grades 6–9
**Age range:** 11–15
**First published:** 2008
**Page count:** 374
**Genre:** Young Adult Dystopian
**ISBN-13:** `9780439023528`
**ISBN-10:** `0439023521`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/the-hunger-games
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

In a future North America of twelve impoverished districts dominated by a wealthy capital, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers as tribute for a televised survival tournament in which only one of twenty-four teens can live. Collins's novel anchors many middle-school dystopian units and is the first of the best-selling trilogy.

## Themes

- authoritarianism
- survival
- media and spectacle
- class inequality
- adolescent agency
- sacrifice

## Content notes

- violence (teens killing teens)
- death of a child (implied)
- starvation
- trauma

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 12+

## Where this book is assigned

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 7th grade · California — [source: CA CCSS ELA grade 7 commonly taught text](https://www.cde.ca.gov/)
- **recommended** · 8th grade — [source: Common Core aligned summer-reading list — rising 8th grade](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **supplementary** · 8th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B adjacent — commonly read independently in grades 6-9](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)

## Banned / challenged record

Documented removals or formal challenges in at least one school district in 2 states: TX, FL. Source: [PEN America's Index of School Book Bans](https://pen.org/banned-book-list/) 2022-2024.

---

_Generated from primary-source citations indexed on ReadingList.school. For the full HTML view with reading-list cross-references, see https://readinglist.school/book/the-hunger-games._