The Hunger Games prequel gets title, cover and release date

The odds were in The Hunger Games’ fans favor during New York Comic-Con this year, as author Suzanne Collins’ recently announced prequel novel got an official title on Good Morning America, as well as a cover reveal and a release date.

On Friday morning, Scholastic announced that the newest addition to the franchise will be called The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes — drawing more allusions to the Mockingjays from the original trilogy and implying that we might be in for some betrayal over the course of the new story.

The cover also bears a striking resemblance to those of the first three books, though readers will be able to add a new color to their shelves. The artwork features a golden Mockingjay sitting on a branch with a snake wrapped around it set against a green-and-black background. Given that this is a prequel, the Mockingjay reference is probably just symbolic.

Scholastic also gave fans a definitive release date for the book. (So, basically, we can all start rereading the first three ASAP.) The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will arrive on May 19, 2020. It’s been a long time since we’ve been in The Hunger Games universe, but we don’t have much longer to wait before jumping back in.

While details about the plot are currently sparse, we do know that the prequel will be set 64 years prior to Katniss’ involvement in the Hunger Games, so we should be getting a taste of Hunger Games past. Due to the timeline, many fans have also speculated that this installment will tell the story of Mags, a former winner who showed up in the mainline series as an elderly woman. Unfortunately, that theory has yet to be confirmed.

With its release on the horizon, additional information about Collins’ next story is likely to emerge over the next few months. There’s also been talk of Lionsgate adapting the prequel — a promising notion given how well the company did with the first four films.

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