No Appetite for "The Hunger Games"

Okay, I just finished the last book of The Hunger Games, and I tried so hard to like the series since everyone was raving about them. The movie version is breaking box office sales.

It’s no secret that the storyline of the three books is based on a violent dystopia society with a the cast of characters who are brutal, shallow and psychopathic. I personally believe that throwing a bunch of kids, age 12-18, into an arena to fight each other until death is barbaric, inhuman and just morally wrong, unless there is a lesson to be learned. The use of gore, cruelty and torture for shock effect doesn’t impress me as a reader. I suggest parents of younger teens should read these books first.

I was disappointed in the heroine, Katniss Everdeen. Her personality lacked depth. She isn’t particularly good at anything but hunting with a bow and arrow. She doesn’t follow orders, she isn’t a visionary, she doesn’t make hard decisions or think for herself. She lets things happen. She’s often clueless, and she’s manipulated by her mentor, friends, rebel forces and others around her. Many times she’s overbearing and rude to her peers, but almost cowardly in her ability to interact with others. Katniss was forever running away when she was recovering from a traumatic situation—climbing into closets, behind pipes, under her bed covers or fallen plasterboard and other lonely places like the forest.

Ironically, I was also waiting for the author to instill some moral or ethical lesson, or give a few redeeming traits to the heroine that would have a positive effect on young adults reading the series. It didn’t happen. And this is where I think the series fail. Katniss never really felt sorry for the other tributes who were killed, besides Rue who she befriended. She continued to be tiresome, boring, sulky, and self-centered throughout the next two books. She was also continually eating something—even when others were dying around her. Even more weird is that she is the person chosen to be the symbol of the revolution!

Her interest in the love triangle and with either young men was lukewarm at best. The duel poisonous, berry-eating scene at the end of the first book is a typical Romeo and Juliet ending, and it tells us what? Suicide is the way to overthrow, manipulate or escape an oppressive government. Really?

I also thought the plot was contrived. Whenever there was a problem in the games, the rules were changed or gifts were parachuted in to help the characters get out of their pathetic situation. All the silly antics of wearing some of the various gowns, modeling six wedding gowns and use of extreme make-up/makeovers were thrown into the storylines because young adults, especially females, are enthralled with fashion, their physical looks, and the desire to be noticed.

I honestly tried to like The Hunger Games. . .I really did. I just couldn’t get hooked.

The Boxcar Children and Me

Everyone has a story about how he or she was hooked on reading. Looking back at my youth, I believe most writers concur that there is a certain memorable time in our lives when our interest in reading was inordinately piqued with a book or series of books. I believe that many adult writers were curious children who were fascinated with reading at an early age.

For me, it was when my second grade teacher, Mrs. Bernice Robbins, introduced our class to the Boxcar Children series. Religiously, every afternoon, Mrs. Robbins made it a point to read aloud a chapter or two of the series, by Gertrude Chandler Warner, author and a first grade teacher as well. The original work was published in 1926, then reissued in 1942. Gertrude Warner wrote the first nineteen stories while other authors continued the series, updating them with present day settings.

What is so special about this particular series? It’s an adventurous story of four orphaned children who create a home in an abandoned boxcar in the forest. They are forced into this situation after they seek permission to stay overnight in a bakery, but overhear the baker’s wife say she'll keep the oldest three, but will send Benny, the youngest, to an orphanage. The children are afraid of their grandfather and legal guardian, James Alden, erroneously thinking him to be cruel old man.

The Alden children, ranging in ages from fourteen to six years old, furnish their boxcar with items retrieved from a local dump. They also befriend an injured dog with a thorn in his paw who Benny names Watch. Henry Alden, the oldest, is able to keep the children together and fed by working at odd jobs in a nearby town. The girls, Violet and Jessie, are skilled in cooking and sewing.

Ironically, many librarians of this time felt that the children in the series were having too good a time without parental control, but Gertrude Warner believed that this was the reason children were attracted to the stories, many of which were written as mysteries and many of which the Alden children, as amateur sleuths, were instrumental in helping to solve. I tend to agree with the author. As a seven year old, I felt it was both exciting and scary to be on your own, hidden away in a rail car that’s furnished only by your own ingenuity. My personal fear that the children would somehow be discovered and sent back to an orphanage kept me intrigued and hanging on to every word in every sentence. Later, the mysterious plots and antics of the (unsupervised) children were the invisible threads that kept me engaged in their lives and in reading.

If you have not read any books from the Boxcar Children series, I encourage you to pick up a copy and do so. Find a young person and share the story with him or her. If you have read any of these glorious tales, drop me a note and tell me your favorite title or your favorite character. Or tell me the moment you were hooked on reading!

Why Do We Write?

Why do we write? I asked myself that the other day as I tried to put together a compilation of short stories and realized that I wasn’t having any fun. It had become a painful chore. But it had become a chore because I was weary of reading, re-reading and editing the same pieces over and over again until I could repeat them verbatim in my sleep.

So off I went to find an activity that would temporarily wipe out the hard drive in my mind. Naturally, the first logical diversion is to take a walk. But you can easily walk and think. A half hour later, I found I was mentally crazy glued to the project worse than if I were actually sitting in front of my laptop and even more thoughts were now swirling through my head.

Later that afternoon, I convinced my husband that we needed to go the driving range and hit some golf balls. I can sheepishly admit that I was so distracted and performed so poorly that I considered selling my clubs to the first person who showed any interest in buying them.

So how did I lose my focus and why did I feel distraught?

It took me all day until I was able to face my dilemma and realize what the problem might be. I was past the pleasure phase. I wasn’t having any fun because I was past the creative part of the process. I was no longer able to escape into the lives of my characters. I was finished designing my settings, dreaming up plots, and crafting new ideas and situations.

  

Yes, I was into the dreaded, painful editing process consisting of all the menial chores like verifying facts, names and spelling; confirming continuity of the various plots; rechecking grammar; and making certain every story was set-up in the same uniform format.

A writer friend of mine said that now is time when you need little rewards and incentives to nudge yourself toward your final goal of producing a complete, clean manuscript.

Oh, please, tell me she was referring to chocolate, jewelry, shopping or a good bottle of wine.

Ten 2012 New Year’s Resolutions

I will strive to. . .

Live each day to the fullest and allow the activities of that day to take me on new, winding journeys I never expected. “Ninety-five percent of the people who died today had expected to live a lot longer.” --Albert M. Wells, Jr.

Be more patient with people, family, processes, my writing, distractions—even slow elevators. We must learn that, like the farmers, we can’t sow and reap the same day.

Exercise more, listen more, laugh more. . . and let the future come one day at a time, as it always does.

Enjoy my home to its fullest, despite the work, dust and menial chores that surround me which often gobble time set aside for writing. After all, home is where you hang your heart.

Dream . . . or rather allow myself the luxury to dream. Dreams are the heart of creativity. “The poorest of all men is not the man without a cent, but a man without a dream.”

Handle criticism graciously.  “If it’s untrue, disregard it. If it’s unfair, keep from irritation. If it’s ignorant, smile. If it’s justified, learn from it.” --Anonymous

Be grateful for the doors of opportunity. . .and for friends who oil the hinges. As writers, we need our family, our friends and other writers who understand the trials and toils of the writing process.

Help find and better define truth in the world. We have lost sight of the importance of truth and honesty in our lives. Our media and people today have failed to delineate the difference between fact versus opinion. “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”-- Aldous Huxley

Understand  and accept that peace does not mean the same thing (or have the same definition) for all the people who inhabit our world. Therefore, as part of a U.S. military family, I will pray for a peace that will remove all our men and women from combat in foreign lands and bring them home to the safety of American soil. “God blesses those who work for peace, for they shall be called the children of God.”   Matthew 5:9

Reiterate my daily mantra in the New 2012 year to all who will listen:

  

             “Never let anyone steal your  joy.”