Spoiler-free book guide

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

A prequel to The Hunger Games · by Suzanne Collins

How it opens

Coriolanus Snow is eighteen, the heir to a once-great Capitol family that hides how poor it has become, and he lives with his cousin Tigris and their grandmother in a cracked penthouse. He needs a strong showing as one of the Academy students picked to mentor tributes in the Hunger Games, since a prize could pay his way to university. He is given the girl from District 12, which he takes as a public insult, until the reaping broadcast shows Lucy Gray Baird slipping a snake down the collar of the mayor's daughter and then singing to the crowd from the stage. The same day he hears of a new tax that could cost the family its home, and Dean Highbottom taunts him to his face about the Snows' empty pockets.

Who you meet early

• Coriolanus Snow
• Grandma'amThe Grandma'am is the grandmother of Coriolanus Snow and Tigris.
• Sejanus PlinthSejanus Plinth is a tall, angular student at the Capitol's Academy, born in District 2 and about to graduate, who wears a costly, brand-new suit and mentors the District 2 boy in the Hunger Games.
• Satyria ClickSatyria Click was Coriolanus Snow's communications professor at the Academy.
• Casca HighbottomDean of the Capitol's Academy and the man Panem knows as the creator of the Hunger Games.
• Lucy Gray BairdLucy Gray Baird is the girl tribute from District 12 in the Hunger Games, a singer with dark curly hair woven with wildflowers who wears a ragged dress of rainbow ruffles.

Where it sits

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel to The Hunger Games, outside its 3 main books. The main series begins with The Hunger Games.

The opening on this page is written only from chapters 1 and 2 of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Character notes are the wiki’s public introductions, the same ones it shows before you set any progress.