The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Hungergames prequel: book news).

Scholastic has now given SFcrowsnest the title and cover for the next novel in The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins — the first new Hunger Games book since 2010’s Mockingjay.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will be published on May 19th 2020, published simultaneously in print, digital and audio formats by Scholastic in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition, translation rights to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes have been sold by Stimola Literary Studio into 28 territories to date.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will revisit the world of Panem sixty-four years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the Tenth Hunger Games.

Suzanne Collins told SFcrowsnest, “With this book, I wanted to explore the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival. The reconstruction period ten years after the war, commonly referred to as the Dark Days—as the country of Panem struggles back to its feet—provides fertile ground for characters to grapple with these questions and thereby define their views of humanity.”