Scholastic has debuted the first look at the new Hunger Games book.
The publisher on Monday revealed the cover for Sunrise on the Reaping, the previously announced new novel in the Hunger Games series, to be published March 18, 2025.
Suzanne Collins’ upcoming book will revisit the world of Panem 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell.
Scholastic describes the book as follows: “As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves. When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight … and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.”
When reflecting on returning to the world of The Hunger Games, Collins said, “With Sunrise on the Reaping, I was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.’ The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”
“The spiky sun rises on a symbol that will come to mean a lot to Haymitch Abernathy, as well as countless readers,” David Levithan, vp, publisher and editorial director for Scholastic, said of the cover in a statement. “Artist Tim O’Brien has created yet another iconic Hunger Games cover — this one symbolically exploring one of the central themes of the series: how conflicting forces can be connected by their common nature, the songbird and the snake springing from the same source.”
Lionsgate also announced plans to adapt Sunrise on the Reaping for a feature film. Francis Lawrence is in talks to direct the adaptation for Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson’s Color Force banner. Lawrence, screenwriter Michael Arndt and producer Jacobson previously teamed with Lionsgate on four film adaptations of Collins’ Hunger Games books — The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. The franchise has grossed $3.3 billion in box office.
Collins previously published The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in 2020, which was adapted into a feature film starring Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler.
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