Mockingjay Part 2

If you are a long long long time reader, you know that one of the best jobs I’ve ever had was working for a professor at the library school at UT Austin. She was on the national Notable Children’s Book committee which meant that she was FLOODED with books sent by publishers for consideration.

Obviously, between her research, teaching, and heavy involvement with local and national library associations, she didn’t have a lot of time to be opening endless packages of books and keeping track of them.

Which meant that I got the amazing job of opening piles of brand-new books several times a week, logging them in the database and then filing them in the cabinets (by the end of the year, we had filled so many enormous cabinets, it was ridiculous).

I also was at liberty to take any books I wanted to read and then report back on which ones I thought she should take a look at.

Best job ever.

A few days in, an advance copy of a book called The Hunger Games arrived. It was the first advance copy I’d ever seen and the thought of reading a book before it even came out was totally mind-boggling to me. I flipped the paperback over and read the teaser and it sounded intriguing.

So I took it home with me and proceeded not to read it (this is a reoccurring theme in my life). Finally, when Bart and I went to San Francisco to celebrate our third anniversary, I took this book and no others on the plane so that I’d be forced to read it.

Two pages later, I was wondering if Bart would mind if I spent our whole trip sitting in our hotel room reading.

During the day, as we walked all over the city, I’d tell Bart in great detail about what was happening in the story, and then when we’d get back to the hotel, I’d read as fast as I could before I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

It was the craziest thing to read it basically in a bubble and then a few months later watch it spark into one of the most popular books of the decade.

A year later, when we spent our fourth anniversary driving across the country to Boston, Bart and I listened to the audio version together.

We both read the following books on our own and then saw each of the movie versions as they were released.

Last winter, when we were in London, all the major stars were in London for the world premiere of Mockingjay Part 1and so of course we packed up the girls in the stroller and headed to Leicester Square where we circled the block approximately 25 times to catch a glimpse of Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth (the security guards wouldn’t let you stop and block the pathways, so unless you’d gotten there hours and hours beforehand, your only option was to keep circling). Bart, being the tallest, managed to snap a couple of photos.

Bart and I are going to see it with another couple that are also big fans, and I can’t wait. I love seeing a movie in theaters opening weekend because there is just so much energy and excitement and I think a movie is more fun with a full house watching along with you. Also a pack of Junior Mints.

If you’d like to see Mockingjay in the theater when it opens, you can enter in the widget below – 5 winners will be selected to win a $100 Fandango gift card from now until Mockingjay opens. But you’ll have to get your own Junior Mints.