Suzanne Collins


Welcome!

Hi! Thanks for visiting my website. Here’s a picture of me with a rat in Central Park. If you’ve read my fantasy series, The Underland Chronicles, you will have a clue as to why I chose this photo. If not, you may want to click around and find out a little more about my books. Or visit the Scholastic website for cool games and info!

Scholastic's Underland Chronicles website

Selected Works

Mockingjay Movie Tie-In Edition is Now Available!



#1 USA Today Bestseller
#1 New York Times Bestseller
#1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller
#1 Publishers Weekly Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Children's Book of 2010
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A 2010 Booklist Editors' Choice
A 2010 Kirkus Best Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010
An NPR Best Book of 2010

“This concluding volume in Collins's Hunger Games trilogy accomplishes a rare feat, the last installment being the best yet, a beautifully orchestrated and intelligent novel that succeeds on every level."
--Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

“...readers will instinctively understand what Katniss knows in her soul, that war mixes all the slogans and justifications, the deceptions and plans, the causes and ideals into an unsavory stew whose taste brings madness. That there is still a human spirit that yearns for good is the book’s primrose of hope."
--Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

“In the final analysis, this is exactly the book its fans have been hoping for. It will grab them and not let go, and if it leaves them with questions, well, then, it’s probably exactly the book Collins was hoping for, too."
--Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

YEAR OF THE JUNGLE


The Making of Year of the Jungle

2013 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR!


“In this picture book, Collins sensitively examines the impact of war on the very young, using her own family history as a template."
--Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

“With a notable lack of patriotic rhetoric or clichés about bravery and honor, Collins holds firm to her childhood memories, creating a universal story for any child whose life is disrupted by war. Important and necessary ."
--Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW

“Collins’ unflinching first-person account details the fears and disappointments of the situation as a child would experience them. And where more realistic illustrations would feel overwrought and sentimental, Proimos’s flat, cartoony drawings, with their heavy lines and blocky shapes, are sturdy and sweet, reflecting a child’s clear-eyed innocence."
--Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

“Proimos’ ink-lined, digitally colored illustrations are the pitch-perfect tonal complement to Collins’ narration, with the family portrayed as wide-eyed, childlike cartoons that carry on with daily life in crayon-bright hues, while young Suzy’s angst-filled imaginings take shape in full-spread, full-bleed gray-tone scenes that twist her innocent favorite animals into recurrent nightmarish motifs and symbols of war. With text and illustrations that invite close reading, this will be a powerful title to share with children well beyond picture-book age."
--The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, STARRED REVIEW

“Collins offers no moralizing on war, just a vivid reminder of what it's like to be young and innocent in a world that's not. I can see a lot of kids whose parents are in someplace called Afghanistan — or another confusing place — identifying with Suzy."
--USA Today, 3 1/​2 OUT OF 4 STARS

“Collins deftly balances the fear and freakout of a little girl who learns her dad's in danger with the upbeat, optimistic portrayal of a kid going about the business of being a kid. James Proimos' cartoony illustrations are more reassuring and funny than scary. "
--Common Sense Media, 5 OUT OF 5 STARS>

"A masterful picture book excels at revealing a young child’s experience during the year her father is away at war...James Proimos’s illustrations are stylistically simple but wisely executed, full of sensitivity and power and poignancy, along with occasional moments of whimsy (that cat!)."
--Cooperative Children’s Book Center

“Seasoned illustrator and close friend James Proimos captures childlike fascination and fear when transforming the jungle from a home for friendly animals to a field for frightening war tools. The book also reassures readers that despite any parent's absence, their love for their children will never leave."
--The Hollywood Reporter

“In the last book of the "Hunger Games" trilogy, author Suzanne Collins offered a bleak vision of war that felt personal. Now we know the source."
--Newsday

“Vibrantly colored cartoon illustrations, outlined in thick black ink, underscore a child’s point of view. The characters’ enormous eyes and boldly colored pupils provide an arresting motif. Suzy’s increasingly haunted imaginings, depicted on spreads of painterly gray tones with bursts of color, stand in stark visual contrast to the narrative text and illustrations framed by generous white space ."
--School Library Journal

“But though post-traumatic stress disorder is often spoken of these days, the more subtle effects of war on the children of men and women serving abroad are less well known...While Sue is not able to formulate her feelings in words, James Proimos’s excellent illustrations capture her confusion...'Year of the Jungle” may take place in the late 1960s, but with more than 2.3 million Americans deployed abroad between 2001 and 2012, the mixture of anxiety, excitement, fear, boredom and confusion Sue experiences on the home front will be sadly familiar to many children. For them, Collins’s picture book may be a good tool to discuss the complex feelings war brings into a household ."
--The New York Times



"At its best the trilogy channels the political passion of “1984,” the memorable violence of “A Clockwork Orange,” the imaginative ambience of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and the detailed inventiveness of “Harry Potter.” The specifics of the dystopian universe, and the fabulous pacing of the complicated plot, give the books their strange, dark charisma."
--The New York Times, Katie Roiphe

"This dystopic-fantasy series, which began in 2008, has had such tremendous crossover appeal that teens and parents may discover themselves vying for -- and talking about -- the family copy of "Mockingjay." And there's much to talk about because this powerful novel pierces cheery complacency like a Katniss-launched arrow. Look skeptically at computer and television images, it suggests, be aware of spin, gaze upon the young faces of the world's soldiers. Children forced to kill children? It's not just in the pages of a novel."
--The Washington Post

"The indelible conclusion to Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy proves once more that the greatest fantasy novels hold an incandescent mirror up to reality."
--Parade, Parade Picks

"But being the Mockingjay comes with a price as Katniss must come to terms with how much of her own humanity and sanity she can willingly sacrifice for the cause, her friends, and her family. Collins is absolutely ruthless in her depictions of war in all its cruelty, violence, and loss, leaving readers, in turn, repulsed, shocked, grieving and, finally, hopeful for the characters they've grown to empathize with and love. Mockingjay is a fitting end to the series that began with The Hunger Games (2008) and Catching Fire (2009) and will have the same lasting resonance as William Golding's Lord of the Flies and Stephen King's The Stand."
--School Library Journal

"The final installment, the grimmest yet, is a riveting meditation on the costs of war...Clear your schedule before you start: This is a powerful, emotionally exhausting final volume."
--People Magazine, 4 OUT OF 4 STARS

"Fans will be happy to hear that Mockingjay is every bit as complex and imaginative as Hunger Games and Catching Fire. Collins has kicked the brutal violence up a notch in an edge-of-your-seat plot that follows Katniss as she tries to fulfill her role, protect her mother and sister and, in the end, finally choose between her two greatest loves. B+."
--Entertainment Weekly

"Mockingjay” is without question the most brutal of the trilogy. Nobody emerges unscathed – very bad things happen to everyone from fan favorites down to characters so minor a reader has to pause and think, “Now, who was that again?” before recoiling in horror at their fate. Collins doesn’t take war lightly – her characters debate the morality involved in tactics used to try to overthrow the rotting, immoral government, and they pay a high cost for those tactics. It is also an entirely gripping read. In Katniss, Collins has crafted a heroine so fierce and tenacious that this reader will follow her anywhere."
--Christian Science Monitor

"Much of the action takes place on a battlefield akin to Iraq — where innocent civilians are murdered to further a cause and each side resorts to unsavory tactics that could lead to a terrorist label. More maudlin than the first two books in the series, "Mockingjay" is also the most violent and bloody and, based on the actions and statements of its characters, its most overtly antiwar — though not so much that it distracts from a series conclusion that is nearly as shocking, and certainly every bit as original and thought provoking, as "The Hunger Games." Wow."
--Los Angeles Times

"Suspenseful... Collins' fans, grown-ups included, will race to the end."
--USA Today

“Whereas Katniss kills with finesse, Collins writes with raw power...The Hunger Games and Catching Fire expose children to exactly the kind of violence we usually shield them from. But that just goes to show how much adults forget about what it's like to be a child. Kids are physical creatures, and they're not stupid. They know all about violence and power and raw emotions. What's really scary is when adults pretend that such things don't exist."
--Time Magazine

“Gladiator” meets “Project Runway” in Suzanne Collins’s gripping dystopian novel “The Hunger Games” and its new sequel, “Catching Fire.” Collins has joined J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer as a writer of children's books that adults are eager to read.”
---Bloomberg.com

“Catching Fire not only lived up to my high expectations, it surpassed them. It's just as exciting as The Hunger Games, but even more gut wrenching, because you already know these characters, you've already suffered with them.”
--Stephenie Meyer, www.stepheniemeyer.com

"[The Hunger Games] is a violent, jarring, speed-rap of a novel that generates nearly constant suspense...I couldn't stop reading."
--Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly Review

"The Hunger Games is as close to perfect an adventure novel as I've ever read. I could not put it down. Collins has transformed the ancient Labyrinth myth into a terrifyingly believable tale of future America. Readers will be hungry for more.
--Rick Riordan, author of The Percy Jackson Series and The 39 Clues

“[The Hunger Games] is a great book, and very thought-provoking. Read this along with your teen and discuss it.”
--Charlaine Harris, www.charlaineharris.com

"BEST. CHILDRENS' BOOKS. EVER."
"A Recent Book That Rocked My Dystopian World"
--Jon Scieszka, Newsweek