Suzanne Collins

A photo of Suzanne Collins (http://www.hggirlonfire.com/category/suzanne-collins/ (Lindsay from http://www.hggirlonfire.com/))

By now, the name "Suzanne Collins" probably sounds familiar to many people. We recognize her by association with her books, namely the now extremely famous Hunger Games series, but Suzanne Collins wasn't always the bright author we know today.

Collins was born in 1962, in Connecticut's capital city of Hartford. As a child, her life was not ideal; born into the family of an Air Force officer, she and her siblings were moving constantly, living in places such as New York City and Brussels. Her father, who also worked as a college professor, strongly believed in educating children about war and would often share stories of his military experiences, such as his deployment to Vietnam. He'd take his children to war monuments and battlefields, teaching them the causes and effects of war, and although these lessons seemed a little unnecessary to teach toddlers, they were not done in vain. Many years later, these same lessons would be rewritten and conveyed to the public in the form of Suzanne's award-winning trilogy, the Hunger Games.

Suzanne Collin's writing career only started after she left graduate school, where she completed a double major in theater and telecommunications, and earned a master's degree in dramatic writing. She went up the writing ladder slowly but surely, taking her first step by becoming a writer for children's television. Collins soon had her literary works acknowledged by co-workers, and was encouraged to enter the career of novel-writing. Therefore, because of this one turn of events in her career, Suzanne Collins started her walk down the road of heroism in 2008, after the first book in her trilogy "The Hunger Games" had been published.

When we mention the Hunger Games trilogy, the first thing that pops into one's mind would probably not be real- time heroism. It wouldn't be real- time heroism because we tend to think of real-time heroism as doing great things like saving someone's life. However, although The Hunger Games does feature fictional heroism, we can now be sure that it also features real-time heroism, since we can now prove that Collins, by writing her book, was trying to educate readers about the effects of war. So because of Collins and her efforts in writing her books we can now be absolutely sure that book writing is a branch of heroism.

So since book writing is now an official heroic act, one would then need evidence or examples to prove this theory. Therefore, because of this, one would look straight to Suzanne Collin's very own Hunger Games series for this evidence, since the three books are filled with perfect examples. The Hunger Games series, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, are perfect examples because they focus on one element, war. But although her theme was mainly war, it was not meant to be phrased in a negative way, because by giving us these examples, Suzanne Collins is educating us about the effects of war through her books and her experiences. However, she is not educating us because she wants fame; rather, Suzanne Collins is educating us in the effects of war because she wants us, especially the teenage boys/ young men, to fully understand that war is not a game. It is not a game because people get killed and devastated from war, and that is no game at all.

Also, by writing this series Suzanne Collins is also trying to teach us to stand up for our rights even if we are standing alone, by using her main character, Katniss Everdeen, who is constantly standing up against the capitol for all of the districts of the rebellion. Also, she is teaching us that we can never fix our mistakes and that the only way to fix them is to learn from them. So since Collins does such an extraordinary job of educating us through this one book, one would think that this is the last of her books. Well, fortunately for us after the Hunger Games she wrote another two: Catching fire and Mockingjay where she continues on with her theme of the aftermath of war. However, although these two new books are very fun to read, the long time fans of this series are saying that the second and third books are "boring" , but they are really not because they are supporting the idea that Suzanne proposed in the beginning of the series, which is that war is very hard to recover from. The two books supports her idea because they "show" us the side effects of the war of Panem over the duration of the three books. So, if we take into account the way that Suzanne wrote her books, she really showed us , through her books, that war is just plain stupid. It is stupid because we pit ourselves against one another and then in the end we both have to lose a brother, sister, or close friend. So is it really worth it? Are wars really worth it?

Suzanne Collins, in my personal opinion, is the greatest writer hero. The reason being is because she, through her amazing works, has educated most of her readers in the side effects of war. She is also a hero because not only did she educate us in the side effects of war, but she also taught us important lessons through the examples given within her books like: We should stand up against oppressors, we should not let our differences separate us from each other, and my personal favorite one, When you fight fire with fire you just get burned, killing is not the answer, nothing will ever justify killing. So if we come to think of it Suzanne Collins might have actually made a significant positive impact within our lives.Therefore, because of Suzanne and her impact within our lives, we can now strive to find more ways to resolve conflicts, other than to resolve them through war. However, all this wouldn't be possible without Suzanne Collins and her creativity.