Publisher Scholastic has released the cover for Mockingjay, the third volume in Suzanne Collins‘s “Hunger Games” trilogy. The book will be released on 24 August 2010, with a planned first printing of 750,000 copies.
Scholastic Audio will release the audiobook version of Mockingjay simultaneously with the print edition.
Editorial Director David Levithan refused to tell what the book contains, but he was willing to share (mockingly) five things that will not be appearing in the book. See this post for the list.
The YA trilogy is set in a post-apocalyptic North America. Scholastic offers this description of the series:
Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives.
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death—televised for all of Panem to see.
Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
Scholastic published The Hunger Games in September 2008, and Catching Fire in September 2009. Collins is also the author of the five-volume “Gregor” YA series.
Collins is writing the screenplay version of The Hunger Games for Lionsgate, who have optioned the series.