I'll admit it: I'm a huge Hunger Games fan. Absolutely love it. So when I saw last week that I could go to www.thecapitol.pn and register as a citizen of Panem, and get assigned a district and an occupation, I couldn't resist. Sure, it's kind of stupid, but hey, any way to incorporate a little more Hunger Games into my life is a welcome thing for me. So, I registered, was assigned District 3, and promptly forgot all about it. Until, a few days later, I received an e-mail that read: "IMMEDIATELY PROCEED TO THE CAPITOL FOR CITIZEN REGISTRATION." Needless to say, I was startled, but then I got totally excited: this was truly an interactive experience! Not simply a one-visit thing, I would be interacting with this website in ways I hadn't originally expected. I signed back on to The Capitol, received my occupation (I'm a technician, if anyone's interested) and my citizen number and proceeded to look around the website a little more. I truly felt like I was--at least in part--re-living the experience of the book.
That experience got me thinking about the relatively new trend of pairing books--particularly children's and young adult books--with technology in some way. There's the new Harry Potter website Pottermore.com which allows you to re-read the books with added information and actually mixes the social networking experience with the books; there are books with less-involved websites, and of course, the endless amount of movies being made from books. It all got me wondering: do these additional experiences outside of the reading of the actual book add to or take away from children's (or our own) experiences with literature? On the one hand, they may encourage reading in general and increase children's enthusiasm about and engagement with particular texts. On the other hand, I think these new technologies may unconsciously pass on the attitude that a book alone is not enough to entertain and delight kids--that they need something in addition to a good book to make it worthwhile.
Overall, I really enjoyed my Panem/Capitol experience and look forward to more from the site. I think in general, these additional book experiences outside of the text are positive for both children and adults; however, there may be a dark side that takes away from the simple experience of reading a book and leaving it wondering what might happen next. When you're not provided with a slew of other interpretations and options, it leaves you with only your own imagination--an experience that I think is good for all of us.
I think that enhancing a book with technology can be a good thing if done carefully. When popular book series incorporate technology into their promotion of the series I think it adds to the experience. A lot of times though, movies and websites intended to enhance books, actually take away from the experience of the book by going overboard. For example: the Twilight series. I read the first three books before the movies came out. While reading the fourth book, I pictured Edward, Bella and Jacob’s movie characters, instead of what I had imagined before, but still I thought the movies added to my experience of the book. But now, I personally think things have gone overboard, with all the Twilight t-shirts and Barbie dolls. We need to be able to simply enjoy a book without all the added technology.
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