The Hunger Games timeline: where Snow, Haymitch and Katniss fit
Start with Panem’s chronology or with the original publication experience.
The Hunger Games includes Katniss’s trilogy and earlier stories. To place Sunrise on the Reaping, Scholastic gives two anchors: Haymitch’s story takes place at the 50th Hunger Games, 24 years before the original trilogy.
In Panem’s chronology, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes comes first at the 10th Games, following young Snow; Sunrise on the Reaping follows, then Katniss’s The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. This is story chronology, not publication order.
The 50th Games are also the second Quarter Quell: publisher Rocco says twice as many tributes are selected. These details locate the story without revealing the contest or ending.
Readers who prefer the original publication experience can begin with Katniss’s trilogy and return to the prequels afterward. That is a reading choice, not a single mandatory order.
