Get ready to go back into the arena. Suzanne Collins and Scholastic have announced a new Hunger Games prequel book will arrive on shelves next year. And Sunrise on the Reaping will take fans back to a period that impacted the original trilogy. The novel focuses on one of the most consequential battle royales in Panem’s history. It’s set during the Second Quarter Quell, the supersized Hunger Games won by a young Haymitch Abernathy. Here’s what we know about this Haymitch-centric Hunger Games novel coming in 2025.
Haymitch Abernathy’s Hunger Games Prequel Novel Shares First Excerpt
We officially have our first-look excerpt from inside of Haymitch’s Hunger Games prequel novel, Sunrise on the Reaping. The text, which was exclusively revealed by People, can be read below. It offers us a glimpse of a young Haymitch Abernathy and his home life before his reaping took place. We sure do get sucked back into Panem quickly. And Haymitch, of course, is just as endearing in his younger form. To skip the text and learn what else we know about Sunrise on the Reaping, click here.
“Happy birthday, Haymitch!”
The upside of being born on reaping day is that you can sleep late on your birthday. It’s pretty much downhill from there. A day off school hardly compensates for the terror of the name drawing. Even if you survive that, nobody feels like having cake after watching two kids being hauled off to the Capitol for slaughter. I roll over and pull the sheet over my head.
“Happy birthday!” My 10-year-old brother, Sid, gives my shoulder a shake. “You said be your rooster. You said you wanted to get to the woods at daylight.”
It’s true. I’m hoping to finish my work before the ceremony so I can devote the afternoon to the two things I love best — wasting time and being with my girl, Lenore Dove. My ma makes indulging in either of these a challenge, since she regularly announces that no job is too hard or dirty or tricky for me, and even the poorest people can scrape up a few pennies to dump their misery on somebody else. But given the dual occasions of the day, I think she’ll allow for a bit of freedom as long as my work is done. It’s the Gamemakers who might ruin my plans.
“Haymitch!” wails Sid. “The sun’s coming up!”
“All right, all right. I’m up, too.” I roll straight off the mattress onto the floor and pull on a pair of shorts made from a government-issued flour sack. The words “courtesy of the Capitol” end up stamped across my butt. My ma wastes nothing. Widowed young when my pa died in a coal mine fire, she’s raised Sid and me by taking in laundry and making every bit of anything count. The hardwood ashes in the fire pit are saved for lye soap. Eggshells get ground up to fertilize the garden. Someday these shorts will be torn into strips and woven into a rug.
I finish dressing and toss Sid back in his bed, where he burrows right down in the patchwork quilt. In the kitchen, I grab a piece of corn bread, an upgrade for my birthday instead of the gritty, dark stuff made from the Capitol flour. Out back, my ma’s already stirring a steaming kettle of clothes with a stick, her muscles straining as she flips a pair of miner’s overalls. She’s only 35, but life’s sorrows have already cut lines into her face, like they do.
Ma catches sight of me in the doorway and wipes her brow. “Happy 16th. Sauce on the stove.”
“Thanks, Ma.” I find a saucepan of stewed plums and scoop some on my bread before I head out. I found these in the woods the other day, but it’s a nice surprise to have them all hot and sugared. “Need you to fill the cistern today,” Ma says as I pass.
We’ve got cold running water, only it comes out in a thin stream that would take an age to fill a bucket. There’s a special barrel of pure rainwater she charges extra for because the clothes come out softer, but she uses our well water for most of the laundry. What with pumping and hauling, filling the cistern’s a two-hour job even with Sid’s help.
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” I ask.
“I’m running low and I’ve got a mountain of wash to do,” she answers.
“This afternoon, then,” I say, trying to hide my frustration. If the reaping’s done by one, and assuming we’re not part of this year’s sacrifice, I can finish the water by three and still see Lenore Dove.
A blanket of mist wraps protectively around the worn, gray houses of the Seam. It would be soothing if it wasn’t for the scattered cries of children being chased in their dreams. In the last few weeks, as the Fiftieth Hunger Games has drawn closer, these sounds have become more frequent, much like the anxious thoughts I work hard to keep at bay. The second Quarter Quell. Twice as many kids. No point in worrying, I tell myself, there’s nothing you can do about it. Like two Hunger Games in one. No way to control the outcome of the reaping or what follows it. So don’t feed the nightmares. Don’t let yourself panic. Don’t give the Capitol that. They’ve taken enough already.
Text from Sunrise on the Reaping © 2025 Suzanne Collins. Provided by Scholastic.
Sunrise on the Reaping‘s Synopsis
The synopsis for the Hunger Games Haymitch prequel novel, which was also recently released, reveals that it takes place during the Second Quarter Quell:
Sunrise on the Reaping will revisit the world of Panem 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell,” Scholastic wrote. “As the day dawns on the 50th annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.
Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves,” the synopsis continued. “When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight … and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.
On March 18, 2025, fans will get a full account of the Fiftieth Hunger Games. That’s one of the most important Games ever. That’s when Haymitch became a victor in name only. The new Hunger Games book, set 24 years before the original novel (and four decades after The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), will start in the same way. It begins on the morning of the Games’ reaping.
“Suzanne Collins has done it again, bringing us back to the world of Panem in order to ask us important questions about our own world,” said Ellie Berger, President, Scholastic Trade, in the book’s official announcement. “Sunrise on the Reaping is a remarkable book, bringing new complexity, perspective, and revelations to a piece of the Hunger Games story that readers have longed to know more about.”
In the release, Collins shared the inspiration behind her new entry into the Hunger Games world. “With Sunrise on the Reaping, I was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few,'” she said. “The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”
And yes, this new Haymitch Hungers Games book is getting its own film through Lionsgate. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes got its own movie just three years after the book’s release. And this story, which will include Haymitch, should have even more appeal to fans of the original Hunger Games trilogy.
When Will the New Hunger Games Book Sunrise on the Reaping Release?
As mentioned, the new Haymitch-centric Hunger Games book will release on March 18, 2025. Practically just around the corner.
Originally published June 6, 2024.
