Just So Stories

Scholastic Australia

March 2025

ISBN:9781761641176

RRP: $29.99

So many of us have been waiting, not so patiently, and I was so excited when this arrived last Monday. Over the ensuing nights I have literally devoured it, with Haymitch every step of the way.

Whether you are a Hunger Games “tribute” [IYKYK], or have a special affection for Haymitch Abernathy [guilty on both counts] or maybe just want to get a peek into what the hell everyone’s been raving about for the past 17 years, if you can deal with high drama and tension, viciousness, bloodbaths, deception, cruelty [so far, sounding like the US in the present really], but also loyalty, devotion, altruism, sacrifice and compassion – get yourself a copy ASAP. That’s gonna be tricky as I’m told they’re currently flown off the shelves already!

It’s 24 years prior to the Hunger Games in which we meet Katniss Everdeen, when a dishevelled drunk named Haymitch Abernathy is appointed mentor for her and Peeta Mellark, and now readers get to learn Haymitch’s own personal tragedy.

Haymitch was illegally reaped for the Quarter Quell games marking the 50th anniversary of the bloodbath. Instead of two tributes from each district, there are doubles. Four very disparate young people are taken from District 12, commonly regarded as the trashiest and poorest part of Panem (in the Appalachians).

Because 12 has only ever had one victor (Lucy Gray Baird – refer to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and not one living, this quartet find themselves with mentors from other districts, who have volunteered to support them. Here we meet Mags and Wiress, and get insight into their own backstories.

During the course of their training and preparation, readers are also introduced to Beetee, Plutarch, Caesar Flickerman and the ineffable Effie Trinket [I love Effie too!] . Seeing all these characters coming together and piecing together the connections, is one of the real joys of this book. [Just as correctly picking immediately that Haymitch’s best friend, Burdock, is going to be Katniss’ father was!].

President Snow is just as evil and cruel as ever, and Haymitch, with some arguably reckless defiance, incurs his wrath from the very outset. While he is ready to accept his own death, his greatest fears are for his mother, little brother and the love of his life, Lenore Dove.

Haymitch is coached in secret by Beetee, and aided by Plutarch to sabotage the arena, and while that attempt is only moderately successful, he has definitely now sealed his fate as far as Snow is concerned, by showing his complete disregard for the ‘blind submission’ expected from all Panem citizens, whether highest or lowest.

So, we learn that the rebellion, in which Katniss played such a key part, had in fact been many years in the making. But it was with steely determination by those involved, who were prepared to plot, plan and be patient.

As you can imagine, the Games themselves are bloody and violent. Haymitch loses not only his district partners, but others, including Beetee’s own son – reaped not by chance, but design – to punish his father for insubordination. His volunteer mentors Wiress and Mags are also punished for their part in helping and supporting him (so now we get why they are ‘damaged’ in the Katniss trilogy).

Haymitch, not highly educated, and certainly not worldly (or Panem) wise, nor even much of a fighter, proves resourceful, intelligent and daring. In other words, exactly what is needed for a revolutionary army. But his spiral into alcoholism following the games, as a result of his trauma, puts that on a back burner until Katniss’ Games and her own like-minded defiance.

It had me in right from the first pages. I’ve read steadily each night [despite my own fraught week with more NDIS argy-bargy] and finished past my bedtime last night, with my heart going out to Haymitch.

It’s now going to be a long wait to see what they make of the movie adaptation – not to mention who will be cast as 16-year-old Haymitch – but in the meantime, I can completely recommend this to you. It goes without saying that this is pretty much only really appropriate for your senior students (due to graphic violence) but as that’s never stopped younger ones reading the series, I doubt it will now.

It gets a HUGE 5 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 rating from me. Get your hands on it as soon as you can. P.S. As it happens today is Wiress/Amanda Plummer’s birthday – 68 today – happy birthday, Wiress!