The Hunger Games: 10 Things Only Book Fans Know About The Everdeens

The Hunger Games series created many tragic, loveable, intelligent, ferocious, and rebellious characters. The series revolves around Katniss Everdeen and her brave act of volunteering as a tribute for the 74th Hunger Games in place of her sister Prim.

The Everdeen family is just one of the families of the thirteen districts who suffered because of the Capitol. But it was never Katniss alone, she was always supported in one way or another. She had the family she grew up with and the family she made. But what about the Everdeen family is information that only readers of the books would know?

10 Peeta’s Father Loved Mrs. Everdeen

When Peeta was younger, his father pointed at Katniss and told him that he had once loved her mother, but it wasn’t meant to be. Katniss’s mother married a coal miner from the Seam.

Peeta asked his father why she chose another man instead of his father and his father replied that the coal miner had a beautiful singing voice. Peeta’s father gives Katniss cookies after the reaping and says he will make sure her family is fed.

9 The Story Of Prim’s Goat

In The Hunger Games novel, Katniss tells Peeta a story while he heals inside the cave during the Games. It’s the story of how Prim got her goat, Lady. Katniss and Gale went out hunting and returned with a buck to get something for Prim’s birthday.

They hadn’t intended on buying a goat, but it was injured, fated for the butcher. When the butcher no longer wanted it, they bought it. Prim and her mother healed the goat and it provided milk and cheese for them ever since.

8 Katniss Didn’t Let Prim Take Tesserae

Tesserae is the Capitol’s way of providing for the citizens of the districts, but it isn’t without a price. It is only available for 12 to 18-year-olds, those who can enter the reaping.

A member of the district can choose to be given provisions on the 8th of each month for a year in exchange for entering their name in the reaping – an extra time for each tesserae claimed. Katniss took Tesserae for each member of her family, but wouldn’t let Prim do the same.

7 Mrs. Everdeen’s Best Friend Died In The Hunger Games

During Catching Fire the novel, Katniss and Peeta watch the 50th Hunger Games. The tape reveals that Haymitch was the male tribute for District 12 while the female tribute was a girl named Maysilee Donner.

Maysilee was Mrs. Everdeen’s best friend and the two shared a teary farewell. Maysilee is revealed to be the aunt of Madge Undersee and the original owner of the Mockingjay pin. Madge gives this pin to Katniss as a district token to take into the games.

6 They Have A Family Plant Book

When Katniss broke her foot in Catching Fire the novel, she had to take time to heal. Peeta came around with cheese buns, Katniss’s favorite, and her family plant book.

Their mother bought it from the apothecary. It held medical information on plants, but Mr. Everdeen used it as a way to catalog which plants were safe to eat. When Katniss and her father went hunting and foraging he told her, “As long as you can find yourself, you’ll never starve.” Katniss and Peeta completed entries and added imagery. It was also the inspiration for Katniss’s book of memories, a tool of healing for herself and her loved ones.

5 Family History With “The Hanging Tree” Song

“I have not sung “The Hanging Tree,” out loud for years, because it’s forbidden, but I remember every word. I begin softly, sweetly, as my father did.” When Katniss was young and Prim was a toddler, they made necklaces of rope and sang the easy melody of “The Hanging Tree,” while their father was home.

When their mother entered the scene, she started yelling and tore the necklaces away from them. Katniss ran outside and hid under a honeysuckle bush and her father found her. “He calmed me down and told me everything was fine, only we’d better not sing that song anymore.”

4 Mrs. Everdeen’s Reaction To Peeta

When Katniss and Peeta arrived back in District 12 and reunited with their family and friends, some reporters asked them questions. “Someone asked my mother what she thought of my new boyfriend, and she replied that, while Peeta was the very model of what a young man should be, I wasn’t old enough to have any boyfriend at all. She followed this with a pointed look at Peeta.”

The reporters’ reactions were ones of laughter and cheeky comments. “Peeta dropped my hand and sidestepped away from me.” This helped Katniss continue with their love story, as they had an excuse for being more distant and reserved.

3 Support During Quarter Quell Training

When Peeta, Haymitch, and Katniss learn that the Quarter Quell tributes will be reaped from existing victors, they begin training in District 12.

They start a regime and work their muscles. They lift weights, run, fight hand to hand, work on combat, and throw knives. Gale teaches them everything he knows about snares. Mrs. Everdeen puts them all on a special diet to gain weight and become stronger, and Prim uses her healing knowledge to tend to their sore muscles.

2 Katniss’s Father Was Respected In The Hob

“What we didn’t absolutely have to eat, I began to trade at the Hob. It was frightening to enter without my father at my side, but people had respected him, and they accepted me.” Her father had taught her how to hunt, making Katniss a bow from a hollow tree, and when he died, she became the family provider.

She remembered the wealthier clients they sold to. “The butcher would buy my rabbits but not squirrels. The baker enjoyed squirrel but would only trade for one if his wife wasn’t around. The Head Peacekeeper loved wild turkey. The mayor had a passion for strawberries.”

1 Katniss Was Outspoken When She Was Younger

“When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble.” So the young Katniss learned to hold an air of indifference, a mask to protect herself and others.

She couldn’t talk about “tricky topics,” ones that Prim might repeat. Gale was her only sanctuary, the only person she could be herself around. Of course, her opinions couldn’t be stifled for long after the Games.

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