PHOTO © Todd Plitt
Bestselling author Suzanne Collins first made her mark in children’s literature with the New York Times bestselling Underland Chronicles fantasy series for middle grade readers. She continued to explore the effects of war and violence on those coming of age with The Hunger Games series.
The Hunger Games (2008) was an instant bestseller, appealing to both teen readers and adults. It was called “addictive” by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly, and “brilliantly plotted and perfectly paced” by John Green in the New York Times Book Review. The book appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 260 consecutive weeks (more than five consecutive years), and the total series has been on the series bestseller list for over 345 weeks to date. There are more than 100 million copies of all four books in the series—The Hunger Games, Catching Fire (2009), Mockingjay (2010), and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020)—in print and digital formats worldwide. Foreign publishing rights for The Hunger Games Series have been sold in 54 languages to 52 territories to date. Lionsgate has successfully adapted each of these books into five feature films that collectively grossed more than $3.3 billion worldwide in theatrical ticket sales.
Year of the Jungle, Suzanne Collins’s picture book based on the year her father was deployed in Viet Nam, with illustrations by James Proimos, was published in 2013 to great critical acclaim.
In 2010 Suzanne Collins was named to the TIME 100 list as well as the Entertainment Weekly Entertainers of the Year list; in 2011 Fast Company named her to their 100 Most Creative People in Business; and in 2016 she was presented the 2016 Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community for exemplifying the unique power of young people’s literature to change lives and to create lifelong book lovers. It was the first time the Guild presented its annual award to a YA author. The Atlantic called Hunger Games heroine Katniss Everdeen, “the most important female character in recent pop culture history,” and TIME Magazine named Katniss to its list of “The 100 Most influential People Who Never Lived.” On The Hunger Games trilogy, The New York Times Book Review wrote, “At its best the trilogy channels the political passion of 1984, the memorable violence of A Clockwork Orange, the imaginative ambience of The Chronicles of Narnia and the detailed inventiveness of Harry Potter.” The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was published in May 2020 and debuted at #1 on the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. The book also was the top selling book in any category for the first half of 2020. On October 1, 2024, Scholastic published The Hunger Games Illustrated Edition, a deluxe illustrated edition of Suzanne Collins’ worldwide bestseller The Hunger Games, featuring more than thirty black-and-white illustrations by internationally acclaimed artist Nico Delort. For more information about The Hunger Games series, visit http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/hungergames.