Missouri Southern’s Literary Lions book club will be taking on The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, this semester.

“We do one book per semester,” Lee Elliff-Pound, alumni director said. “We do one in the fall, which we are now doing the common reader that the freshman class reads. In the spring we do a read and we do a summer read as well.

“This semester we’re reading The Hunger Games, the first one in the trilogy,” she said.

Retired faculty member Dr. Doris Walters will be moderating the discussions and also helped in the selection of this semester’s novel.

The Hunger Games follows the tale of a teenage girl named Katniss who, chosen by lottery, must compete for her district in The Hunger Games.

There are 12 districts within the nation of Panem, with one male and one female representative from each of those districts.

The Hunger Games is a battle to the death for the competitors, broadcasted to the nation on live television.

Katniss must fight for survival and weigh choices of humanity, life and love.

“It’s really good,” Pound said.

“If you can get about an hour’s time in, then you’re hooked. It’s kind of hard to follow at first, but it’s really good.”

Literary Lions book club is open with a donation of $25 to all students and alumni and $15 to Friends of the Library members.

“All they have to do is call [the alumni office] and we can get them set up to participate,” Pound said.

“It changes with each read that we do but the average is about 15 participants and we like to keep it to that size so we have good dialogue in the group.”

The Literary Lions will meet three times this semester to discuss the selected book.

The first meeting will take place on Thursday, March 15 to give an introduction and background of the author and novel. Group discussions will take place on Mar. 29 as well as Apr. 5.

All meetings begin at 6:30 p.m. and will take place in the Spiva Library near the coffee shop on the bottom floor.

“It’s really a great group of people,” Pound said.

“They come back and join us and are really supportive of Missouri Southern and the library.”

Those wishing to participate in the Literary Lions book club and The Hunger Games discussion are asked to call the Southern alumni office at (417) 625-9355 by Mar. 1.