Scholastic announced on Thursday that they will publish Suzanne Collins’ fifth The Hunger Games novel, Sunrise on the Reaping, on March 18, 2025. Shortly after, Lionsgate, the producers of all previous Hunger Games films, announced their adaptation of the book will hit movie theaters on November 20, 2026. The Hunger Games renaissance, it appears, is far from over.

Information about Sunrise on the Reaping is currently scarce, with Scholastic stating only that it “will revisit the world of Panem twenty-four years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell.”

Despite this relatively short synopsis, fans of the book and movie series do know a bit more about the Second Quarter Quell. In the second book and movie of The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire, Peeta and Katniss learn that the game their mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, won was the bloody Second Quarter Quell. Haymitch’s win was an infamous one, given that his game saw the reaping of forty-eight tributes instead of the usual twenty-four.

The Hunger Games and a Deeper Meaning

Neither Scholastic nor Collins have stated which character’s point of view Sunrise will focus on. Though Haymitch is an obvious contender, a statement Collins made to the Associated Press hints at a narrative that could dig even deeper.

“With Sunrise on the Reaping,” Collins said, “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.’” Collins’ borrowing from philosophy for this book is no surprise, given how The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is essentially an exploration of multiple philosophical ideas and what happens when they all come to a head. Sunrise, it seems, will follow in much the same vein, but with a somewhat narrower focus. Collins 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.”

Though we know little about the details of Sunrise, Collins’ statement reminds us of the fact that she doesn’t add to her series unless she has something important to say. That ‘something’ this time, seems like it will be every bit as relevant to our current global lives as the allegories we see in the rest of The Hunger Games series. In less than a year, we’ll find out for sure. Until then …

May the odds be ever in our favor.

Sunrise on the Reaping will be published by Scholastic on March 18, 2025.

Cover photo credit: Todd Plitt