The Hunger Games is hugely popular with both boys and girls. Why do you think that is?

Whenever I write a story, I hope it appeals to both boys and girls. But maybe in its simplest form, it's having a female protagonist in a gladiator story, which traditionally features a male. It's an unexpected choice. Or I don't know, maybe the futuristic, grim nature of the story is larger than that. I wouldn't care who was the lead in a good dystopian story. You know what I mean?

What's been the most memorable feedback you've gotten from teachers and kids?

One of the most memorable things I hear is when someone tells me that my books got a reluctant reader to read. They'll say, "You know, there's this kid and he wouldn't touch a book and his parents found him under a blanket with a flashlight after bedtime because he couldn't wait to find out what happened in the next chapter." That's just the best feeling. The idea that you might have contributed to a child's enjoyment of reading.

Who contributed to your love of reading and writing?

In fifth and sixth grade, I went to school in an open classroom. And the English teacher, Miss Vance, was wonderful. On rainy days, she would take whoever was interested over to the side and read us Edgar Allan Poe stories. I remember all of us sitting around just wide-eyed as she read "The Telltale Heart" or "The Mask of the Red Death." She didn't think we were too young to hear it. And we were riveted. That made a huge impression on me.

If only we could all know a Miss Vance! How do you convince the adults who are more concerned about your themes?

I think it's how you present it. Kids will accept any number of things. The Underland Chronicles — which I wrote for kids the same age as I was when Miss Vance read me Edgar Allan Poe — features death, loss, and violence. The third book has biological warfare, the fourth book has genocide, the fifth book has a very graphic war. And I wondered if at some point that was going to become a problem. Not for the kids so much but for parents or schools. And it never seemed to. I think somehow if you went on that journey with me from the beginning, you kind of worked into the more violent places and were prepared by what had come before.

What drew you to writing science fiction?

Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to explore things that bother you in contemporary times. So, in the case of the Hunger Games, issues like the vast discrepancy of wealth, the power of television and how it's used to influence our lives, the possibility that the government could use hunger as a weapon, and then first and foremost to me, the issue of war.

War seems to be a very important theme for you.

My father was career Air Force and was also a Vietnam veteran. He was in Vietnam the year I was six. But beyond that, he was a doctor of political science, he was a military specialist, he was very well educated. And he talked about war with us from very early on. It was very important to him that we understood things, I think because of both what he did and what he had experienced.

If you went to a battlefield with him you didn't just stand there. You would hear what led up to this war and to this particular battle, what transpired there, and what the fallout was. It wasn't like, there's a field. It would be, here's a story.

How does war connect to your concerns about TV, especially reality TV?

The Hunger Games is a reality television program. An extreme one, but that's what it is. And while I think some of those shows can succeed on different levels, there's also the voyeuristic thrill, watching people being humiliated or brought to tears or suffering physically. And that's what I find very disturbing. There's this potential for desensitizing the audience so that when they see real tragedy playing out on the news, it doesn't have the impact it should. It all just blurs into one program. And I think it's very important not just for young people, but for adults to make sure they're making the distinction. Because the young soldier's dying in the war in Iraq, it's not going to end at the commercial break. It's not something fabricated, it's not a game. It's your life.

How do you think teachers can help children be more conscious about the media they're consuming?

Well, the first distinction is what is real and what is not real. I've written for children's television for a long time and very young children don't even have the capacity to distinguish. But as kids get older, you have to sit down with them on a case-by-case basis and say, "You know, this is a game, this is made up," and make sure they understand. Then, "This is news footage, this really happened," so that children understand someone getting voted off a show is not the same thing as a tsunami.

That's an extreme example, but they have to know that it's not just stuff that happens in this box and it's contained and you can turn it on and off. That there's real life occurring that doesn't end when the commercials roll.