Learning and Teaching for Life: Suzanne Collins Author Study

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Suzanne Collins Author Study

One of my favorite parts of being in an elementary classroom is children's literature! In fact, if I wasn't going to be a teacher, I would probably be a children's librarian. It also helped that I had the best children's lit. class in college, where the professor did a wonderful job getting us prepared to teach and excited for children's books. In that class, I learned that knowing about the authors is important and can teach students many things. My favorite way to do this with a class is to do an author study. David Shannon has been one that I have done with multiple primary classrooms, focusing on how he wrote the first David book when he was five and how he includes his dog, Fergus, in at least one picture in every book he illustrates. You can read more about this here. Well, since I love doing author studies, I thought I would start a series of author studies on my blog, so you can learn more about some superb authors. I'm hoping to feature some information about them, books they have written, ways to use it in the classroom, and other resources I have found. Without further explanation, here is an author's study on Suzanne Collins!

Meet the Author

     Suzanne Collins was born and stills lives in Connecticut. Although she now lives in the same state, she moved around often as a child since her father was a U.S. Air Force officer. She is using this experience to write her newest book, which I wrote more about below. She graduated from Indiana University with degrees in drama and telecommunications. In 1991, she began writing for children's television and has won many awards from this. This start to her career and her major would be an interesting topic to discuss with upper elementary students who have read her books. It doesn't appear that she began writing with the intent of writing a young adult literature, but I'm sure this experience surely helped her.
     According to her website, Suzanne came up with the idea for The Underland Chronicles after thinking about Alice in Wonderland. She wrote this series between 2003 and 2007. In 2008, the first book of The Hunger Games was published and quickly became internationally known, read by all ages, and on the top of many bestseller lists for many weeks. Now, movie versions of this series have been coming out, and Suzanne has been writing another picture book. She lives in Connecticut with her family.

Books
     When people think of Suzanne Collins, they automatically think of The Hunger Games, but that is not the only series she has written. She actually started her writing career by writing stories for children's television like Little Bear, Oswald, Clifford's Puppy Days, and more. It's hard to imagine that someone who wrote something as intense as The Hunger Games has written lots of preschool level shows, but it's true, and I think it's important for students to realize this. In this section, I'll feature her books. She has two series and one picture book with another picture book coming out in September.

The Hunger Games series
This series is very well known, so I won't spend too much time on it. These stories take place in Panem, where 12 districts rebelled seventy four years ago. As a result of the rebellion, the Capitol show their power by holding a Hunger Games every year in which two twelve- to eighteen-year-olds from each district fight each other to the death, hoping to be the last one standing. These books are stories of rebellion, freedom, war, and love. Teaching at an elementary level, I probably would not use these books in my classroom (as much as I love them), but I know many fourth and fifth graders who have read them.

The Underland Chronicles

This series is lesser known, but just as good as The Hunger Games. I listened to the first few on audiobook on my way to and from school this fall, and each time it would leave me on a cliffhanger! Then I read the last few so fast because I couldn't put them down. Gregor is an ordinary 11-year-old kid from New York City until one day while he is doing laundry. His little sister, Boots, crawls into a vent and falls down into the Underland, which is a whole new world with giant rats, cockroaches, spiders, and bats. Trying to find a way back home, he meets some unusual humans that live down there and have never seen the light of day. Gregor discovers that there are prophesies that the Underlanders expect him to fulfill. Throughout the series, Gregor keeps being called/sent back to the Underland to fulfill yet another prophesy, which always includes many adventures and war.
According to Scholastic, these books have a fifth grade reading level. Personally, I loved these books but would be careful which students read them given the content. I am usually overprotective about potentially scary things in the content because I was the child who would have nightmares after reading something this thrilling. There is violence, war, and death, but it is tastefully written. I would still be cautious, especially for kids with vivid imaginations. I really enjoyed these books as would many upper elementary/middle school boys, and I am hoping to have a set for free reading in my fourth/fifth grade classroom this fall!

When Charlie McButton Lost Power
This rhyming picture book has a wonderful meaning behind it. Charlie McButton loves electronics and plays on them all the time until one day when the power goes out. Desperate for a single battery to play an electronic game, he tries to steal one from his three-year-old sister. In the end, he ends realizes that he can have fun without electronics, which is a message so many children need to hear these days. This book would be good for all elementary ages.

Year of the Jungle

Year of the Jungle is Suzanne Collin's latest book and will be released on September 10th. Since I haven't read this book myself, I'll let the description from Publisher's Weekly that is quoted on her website tell you about it: “In this picture book, Collins sensitively examines the impact of war on the very young, using her own family history as a template." This sounds like a good book to have in my international classroom this year. I can't wait to read it!

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