Literary Blog Number 5

My favourite scene in Catching Fire is when Katniss' dress "catches on fire" while she's twirling it. It was during an interview the night before she was sent into the arena to face her second year of the Hunger Games. All tributes, who were previously victors in past Hunger Games, must be interviewed for three minutes by the host Caesar Flickerman. The tribute's interviews go in order from District 1-12. The female tribute goes first, then the male tribute enters the stage. It's shot in a huge studio and is broadcasted live throughout all of Panem. It is mandatory to watch the interviews. By the time Katniss comes out, the audience is a wreck from all their sobbing. Who knew there'd be such a strong bond between the victors and the rest of Panem? The audience begin to cry harder by the sight of Katniss in her designated wedding dress. Katniss and Peeta's wedding was supposed to be spectacular, but it got cancelled because they were entered into the Hunger Games for the second time. Only one of them have the chance to make it out alive. While she's twirling she notices smoke coming from her dress. She continues to twirl because she knows it must be one of her stylist's fascinating tricks. She stops and notices herself on the television screen above. Her white dress has been burned away and replaced by a black, winged dress of the same style. The dress resembles the bird on her iconic pin, a mockingjay. What makes this scene my favourite is the hidden rebellion Katniss' stylist, Cinna put within the idea.

A sketch of what I imagined this scene as (not my sketch)

Literary Blog Number 4

The author Susan Collins writes in first-person in the novel Catching Fire. Susan writing balances well between informal and dialogue. The book is in the future, but they still talk the same. Her sentences vary from simple to compound. The author uses not too much detail but just enough to paint the scene for the audience. For an example, I'm going to quote what Susan wrote while explaining when Cinna (the stylist) turned Katniss' suit for the opening ceremonies "I look down, fascinated, as my ensemble slowly comes to life, first just with a soft golden light but gradually transforming to the orange-red of burning coal. I look as if I have been coated in glowing embers - no, that I am a glowing ember straight from our fireplace. The colours rise and fall, shift and blend, in exactly the way coals do." You can see everything that Katniss Everdeen thinks about, but when she talks to herself in her head, her thoughts go into italics. The book is split into three parts. Part one is entitled "The Spark". Part two is entitled "The Quell". Part three is entitled "The Enemy". There are 27 chapters, and each chapter ends with a cliff hanger making you want to read even further. This book's level of complexity would be suggestive for the seventh grade. Catching Fire is written in chronological order. The Hunger Games was the first book. Catching Fire picks up where The Hunger Games left off at. And Mockingjay is the continuation of Catching Fire.