Plants on the Reaping: Botanical Symbols on a Sunrise First Read

With Sunrise on the Reaping being told from Haymitch Abernathy’s perspective, I had high hopes for more insights from District 12, Appalachia, my very own stomping ground.

Those hopes have not been disappointed. In the coming weeks, with re-reads, I’ll be posting more thoughts from my scrappy district, home of rascals and jackasses alike. For my thoughts after a first read, I thought we’d focus on one of my favorite motifs from the original trilogy: plants, particularly those native to Appalachia, both now and in the distant dark future of Panem. Botanicals, both literal and symbolic, crop up all over the novel, and they are a particular favorite of mine, as I research and present historical programs on medicinal plants in particular. So let’s take a tiptoe through the garden. Beware: spoilers abound, so, if you haven’t finished your own first read, wait outside the gate.

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Hunger Games Movie News: Entertainment Weekly Article, Filming Starts Here in NC, and We Have a Cinna

Last week, we posted on the Entertainment Weekly cover that gave us our first peek at Jennifer Lawrence. This week, we’ll poke around in that article to see how the Game is being played, on multiple levels. We also have an update on the filming taking place just down the road from this Professor’s office. And, of course, we have some thoughts on the casting news this week, in particular the announcement that Cinna will be played by musician and actor Lenny Kravitz. Let’s face it, if we have any more exciting announcements in this post, we need trumpets, and I’m changing my name to Claudius Templesmith. [Read more…]