The Short Version
Today it’s every connection between Sunrise on the Reaping and the original Hunger Games trilogy: the families, the songs, the objects, and the people who show up again. Full spoilers for all the books.
The short version: Sunrise on the Reaping quietly explains Katniss’s family, her mockingjay pin, Haymitch’s drinking, and even why he keeps geese.
Katniss’s Father
Haymitch’s best friend is Burdock, a hunter with a bow, a beautiful singing voice and a gift for finding plants in the woods. In the epilogue, Haymitch tells us Burdock later died in a mine explosion, and his daughter started trading squirrels at the Hob.
Burdock is Katniss’s father. And the songs he sings, like The Hanging Tree, are the songs Katniss learns from him.
Katniss’s Mother
Burdock’s girlfriend is Asterid, a merchant girl who makes medicines at the apothecary and doses Haymitch with sleep syrup after the Games.
In the trilogy, Katniss’s mother is a healer from a merchant family who ran an apothecary. Collins never spells it out, but the clues point one way.
The Mockingjay Pin
Maysilee Donner, Haymitch’s ally, is a town girl with a twin sister, Merrilee. Lenore Dove’s uncle, Tam Amber, made the Donner twins a gold mockingjay pin.
In the epilogue, Haymitch calls Maysilee the former owner of the mockingjay pin. In the first book, the mayor’s daughter Madge gives that pin to Katniss. So Katniss carried Haymitch’s dead ally into her own Games.
The Covey
Lenore Dove belongs to the Covey, the musical family from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Their name poems, their bright colors, their geese, and their songs all come from that book.
And Haymitch sees an old recording of a Covey girl in a rainbow dress, District Twelve’s first victor, reaching out to a young man with a crown of curls. That’s Lucy Gray Baird and Coriolanus Snow.
The Hanging Tree
Lenore Dove plays The Hanging Tree, the forbidden song Katniss sings in Mockingjay. Haymitch even works out what it’s about.
And the mockingjays themselves, born from the Capitol’s failed jabberjays, appear all through the book, picking up songs at a funeral.
Effie Trinket
Effie is in the book, very young. Her sister, Proserpina, is on Haymitch’s prep team, and Effie steps in to help.
She’s the one who stands beside Haymitch when the Peacekeepers chain him for his victor’s ceremony. Positive attitude, she reminds him. It’s the start of a very long partnership.
Plutarch, Beetee, Wiress And Mags
Plutarch Heavensbee, the future Head Gamemaker and rebel, is filming District Twelve, and saves Lenore Dove from being shot at the reaping. At the end, he asks Haymitch to join a rebellion someday.
Beetee is the inventor behind the arena plot, and Wiress and Mags act as mentors. All four are central to Catching Fire.
The Force Field
Haymitch wins by using the arena’s force field to bounce Silka’s ax back at her. In Catching Fire, Katniss watches a recording of his Games and realizes exactly that.
It’s also why she later shoots the force field in the Quarter Quell arena. She learned it from him.
Why He Drinks
Haymitch’s first job is helping Hattie Meeney brew white liquor. After Snow kills his mother, his brother and Lenore Dove, he starts drinking to forget, and never really stops.
So the drunk mentor Katniss meets on the train is a sixteen year old who lost everyone, a few weeks after winning.
Snow’s Poisons
Snow poisons a Capitol official with oysters, sends Haymitch a poisoned pitcher of milk, and kills Lenore Dove with blood red gumdrops.
In the trilogy, Snow’s breath smells of blood and roses, and Finnick tells Katniss that Snow poisoned his enemies. This book shows us how far back that goes.
The Geese
In the epilogue, Katniss brings Haymitch goose eggs, and Peeta builds an incubator. Lenore Dove loved geese.
At the end of Mockingjay, Haymitch is raising geese in Victor’s Village. Now we know why.
The Memorial Book
At the end of Mockingjay, Katniss and Peeta make a book of the people they’ve lost. In the epilogue, Haymitch finally adds his pages: his family, his tributes, and his love.
That book is the frame for the whole novel. Haymitch is finally telling his own story.
Your Turn
Which connection gave you chills? Tell me in the comments. My review and the ending explained are linked below.
