The Hunger Games

I love this book!  My kids love this book!  We looked forward to Spring Break, which we had predetermined to be when we would read it.  The three of us cuddled on the couch, and took turns reading out loud a chapter each.  I am going to admit that during some of the nail biting moments of the book, I would insist on reading, not having the patience to wait for my children, who read slightly slower than I do! 

As we read, I tried to think of an activity we could incorporate with the book.  One of the aspects I enjoyed most about the book was Katniss' foraging skills.  Eating off the land for us is limited to only wild berries, onions and nuts, but I love that it's enough for my children to have an understanding of where food really grows, not the grocery store or the garden.   I laugh when I recall a my daughter's friend, who accompanied us to pick up pecans from a local park in the fall.  She couldn't believe we were going to EAT the pecans we found in the dirt!  She tried the shelled nuts, and loved them!  When we dropped her off at home she told her mom, and I got a concerned phone call about letting her eat off the ground!

We decided to be adventurous with the the food that Katniss credits with saving her life.  It's an important moment in the book, right after she has received a loaf of old bread from the small boy that lives at the bakery, her first food in days.  She sees a dandelion growing, and remembers her father teaching her foraging skills in the woods, before he is killed in a mining accident.  We did some reading on dandelion recipes, and choose three.  We made dandelion greens, added dandelion flowers to a salad with poppy seeds, and lightly battered the flowers and fried them.  Can you guess which was my southern children's favorite?  We don't attend the Texas State Fair each year for nothing, we love anything fried!