A few weeks ago, Country Day Montessori school hosted their second-annual “Hunger Games Summer Camp” and were suddenly met with a flurry of horrified reactions after a hand-wringing article by the Tampa Bay Times Tribune, which concluded with a boy being knocked over during a game of capture-the-flag. And on the surface, “Hunger Games Summer Camp” does sound a little…questionable? But it also seemed like an innovative way to integrate a thoughtful work of literature into a child’s every day experience.
Many works of children’s and YA literature are violent—people die in the Harry Potter universe as well, but no one gets upset about Muggle Quidditch. I was intrigued by the backlash against the camp, and wanted to know how they dealt with those questions of violence, and why, of all the books they could have structured their camp around, they chose Suzanne Collins’ dystopia?
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