Suzanne Collins Top Facts

Collins is one of the most well-known writers of Young Adult Fiction today. She has several works in her repertoire, including ‘The Underland Chronicles’ and ‘The Hunger Games’. Suzanne Collins is also popular for her picture books, ‘Year of The Jungle’ and ‘When Charlie McButton Lost Power’.

Collins was named the bestselling Kindle author

In March 2012, Suzanne Collins was named the best-selling Kindle author of all time by Amazon. It was revealed that she was the author of 29 of the 100 most highlighted passages in Kindle ebooks. She was also the author of 17 of the top 20 recently highlighted passages on an Amazon list.

Collins has dedicated her book, Mockingjay, to her family

Not much is known about Suzanne Collins’ personal life. However, we know that she married an actor named Charles Pryor in 1992. Her husband’s nickname is Cap. The two of them have two children called Charlie and Isabel. However, the couple has been separated since 2015.

She wanted Jennifer Lawrence for The Hunger Games movies

Suzanne Collins adapted ‘The Hunger Games’ trilogy for the film herself. She had a say in picking the actors for the movies as well. Even though the protagonist of the movie was Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year-old girl, she felt that 20-year-old Jennifer Lawrence fit the role better. This is because she believed that the character of Katniss called for a “certain maturity and power” which could only be brought forth to the audience by an older actress. She has also mentioned that Jennifer Lawrence was “the only one who truly captured the character I wrote in the book” and that she embodied “every essential quality necessary to play Katniss.”

She worked for Nickelodeon

Collins received an M.F.A in 1989 in Dramatic Writing from New York University, after which she began a career in writing for television in 1991. It was during this time that she worked for several children’s shows for Nickelodeon, including ‘Oswald’, ‘The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo’, ‘Clarissa Explains it All’, and ‘Little Bear’.

She paved the way for Young Adult Fiction

Suzanne Collins was the seminal author of Young Adult Fiction with her ‘Hunger Games’ trilogy. Her literary influence over the Young Adult genre is widespread, with several Young Adult writers taking inspiration from her. In 2016, Collins won the Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community in 2016, which was the first time that an author of Young Adult Fiction was awarded such an honor.

She wrote several picture books

Suzanne Collins is the author of several picture books for children. She wrote a funny and topical book called ‘When Charlie McButton Lost Power’ in 2005. Illustrated by Mike Lester, this picture book captures the dangers of computer addiction hilariously and acts as a brilliant and not-so-subtle commentary on the ways of children in the 21st Century. Collins published an autobiographical picture book called ‘Year of The Jungle’ in 2013. ‘Year of The Jungle’ revolves around a young girl named Suzy, who is separated from her father due to his being drafted for the Vietnam war. 

She had Buttercup the cat changed in the second installment of The Hunger Games

As Collins realized the importance of Buttercup, the cat that the character of Primrose Everdeen was so attached to in ‘The Hunger Games‘ series, she asked the director, Francis Lawrence, to change the cat from the black and white one that was seen in the first installment of ‘The Hunger Games’ to the orange one in the next two installments. This was done to match the cat that she had described in the books. 

She has varied hobbies

Suzanne Collins amuses herself in various ways. Her hobbies include gymnastics, running, and reading. She especially loved reading Greek mythology as a kid. The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur was a favorite. Collins is also a huge fan of nature, having spent a great amount of her childhood outdoors. 

She was inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Collins had the idea for ‘The Underland Chronicles’ when she was pondering about Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. She joked about how one was more likely to go down a manhole rather than a rabbit hole in New York City, and it was highly unlikely for one to find a tea party down it. Thus, the idea for ‘The Underland Chronicles’ was born.

She has four lucky colors

Collins has stated that she has four lucky colors – gold, orange, white and red. Most of these colors make their way into her books. For instance, the Mockingjay pin that the main character Katniss wears into the arena during the first Hunger Games book is a gold pin, while the favorite color of the hero of the trilogy, Peeta Mellark is orange – not bright orange, but soft like the sunset.

She was inspired to make Katniss a hunter because of her father

Suzanne Collins has mentioned that her father grew up during the Depression and that he and his family had very little to eat. As a result, they resorted to hunting. She says: 

For his family, hunting was not a sport but a way to put meat on the table. He also knew a certain amount about edible plants. He’d go into the woods and gather all these wild mushrooms and bring them home and sauté them. My mom wouldn’t let any of us go near them! But he’d eat them up and they never harmed him, so I guess he knew which ones were safe, because wild mushrooms can be very deadly. I also read a big stack of wilderness survival guidebooks. And here’s what I learned: you’ve got to be really good to survive out there for more than a few days.

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