News Nearby: Play in 'The Hunger Games' Tournament

It seems like everyone is talking about going to see “The Hunger Games" in the movie theater. But what if you could participate on a “District” team doing battle in the arena?

Scott Township Public Library is organizing  with four other area libraries for teenagers from different communities to compete against each other.

Anyone interested in playing in the trivia contest, where there will be fun and prizes, can sign up to play on teams from libraries in , Mt. Lebanon,  and Monroeville. Even residents can still sign up to play on one of those teams.

The contest will be Saturday at 6:30 p.m. in the first floor meeting room next to the library.

“Anyone can join,” said Sherry Small, the Scott children’s librarian who is organizing the competition. “I’d like them to sign up with us because there is a little bit of a competition with the libraries.”

The trivia contest is free and open to kids ages 12 to 18, but adults who like the books can also play by being “sponsors” to help the players during the games. Those interested should contact one of the five libraries participating to join in the competition.

“The anticipation is off the charts,” Small said of the movie that is to be released this week. “It’s very hot.”

For those who haven’t heard about “The Hunger Games” (including myself), the literary trilogy is set in the future when the United States is broken into 12 districts. Every year, the districts send a boy and a girl to compete in the games at The Capital, where they fight to the death and only one survives. There is, of course, a love interest between a few of the main characters.

Scott Library’s version isn’t nearly as violent. Each of the five libraries will have their own teams competing against each other for prizes. The players are called tributes, the same name given to players in the actual game.

Parents can also get involved by being “sponsors” that will drop periodic guesses or “gifts” to the players, just like in the books.

“We didn’t want them competing against the kids,” Small said. “The regular citizens (in the book) can be sponsors and drop gifts when the tributes are wounded or starving to help them survive. When the tributes are stuck in their trivia game, (the parents) can drop their trivia knowledge.”

For more information about the trivia contest, go to Scott Township Public Library’s website at www.scottlibrary.org.

This story was first posted on Chartiers Valley Patch.

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