The Hunger Games By the time the film adaptation of "The Hunger Games" was released in 2012, the publisher had reported over 26 million "Hunger Games" trilogy books in print, including movie tie-in books. "The Hunger Games" universe is a dystopia set in Panem, a country consisting of the wealthy Capitol and 12 districts in varying states of poverty. Every year, children from the districts are selected to participate in a compulsory televised battle royale death match called The Hunger Games. The novels were all well received. In August 2012, the series ranked second, exceeded only by the "Harry Potter" series in NPR's
The Hunger Games (novel) 2011, the book won the California Young Reader Medal. In the 2012 edition of Scholastic's "Parent and Child" magazine, "The Hunger Games" was listed as the 33rd-best book for children, with the award for "Most Exciting Ending". The novel is one of the top 5 best selling Kindle books of all time. However, the novel has also been controversial with parents; it ranked in fifth place on the American Library Association's list of frequently challenged books for 2010, with "unsuited to age group" and "violence" being among the reasons cited. Similarities of "The Hunger Games" to Koushun Takami's 1999 novel