#SOL14 - For the Love of The Hunger Games

So often I have students (mostly girls) come to me and ask for Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. Now, I can't blame them for wanting to read it -- The Hunger Games is everybody's darling right now. They've seen the trailer, many have seen the movie, and they love Jennifer Lawrence because everybody loves JLaw.

Of course, my students are not quite the typical age group. These are Fourth and Fifth grade students that want to read the book they think they fell in love with then they watched the movie. They ask me each week if I will pleasepleasepleaseplease-prettyplease-pleaseplease get the books into our library.

The thing is, I can't*. I work on elementary campuses and am allowed to purchase middle grade books for my libraries. The Hunger Games and many of it's similar YA brethren (sisterhood?) are out. I'm trying to compile a decent go-to list of dystopian books geared toward middle grade students, but so far the pickings seem slim.

So, dear reader, I'm hoping you can help. What dystopian novels would you recommend to Fourth and Fifth grade readers that are eager to jump into a story environment similar to The Hunger Games?


*A friend far wiser than me pointed out I could just borrow from one of our middle schools, which is true, but I'd also like to create a display of "Like this… You'll love…" to help students navigate toward materials we have in our libraries.