BOOK REVIEW
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Connects to Current World Events
This Hunger Games prequel can lay bare our biases and evoke empathy.
Fans of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games franchise rejoice! Her latest addition, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is well worth the wait.
Imagine my surprise when I read it, only to discover how deeply connected to our world’s current events it is: activism, poverty/wealth divide, political intrigue, oppression by those in power. Okay, maybe all the Hunger Games books were that way, but with what has been going on around us recently, they pop out, grab you, and hold on.
It demonstrates how an individual’s biases, drawn from their own personal perspectives, experiences and societal influences, prevents them from being empathetic and compassionate toward someone who is different.
Warning! There may be some spoilers ahead.
This is the origin story for Coriolanus Snow, the future head of Panem, revealing how he evolves into the person we know in the Hunger Games series. You come to understand that, although he is flawed, he is not inherently evil.
