This short story reminded me strongly of the Hunger Games trilogy, mainly, the section of the first book where the Reaping takes place. The Lottery is based strongly on the same idea, or since this was published before the Hunger Games, I guess you could say the Reaping was based on the idea of the Lottery. This story had me hooked from the beginning and I had to read it again. I felt the tenseness of the crowd, the dread of the Hutchinson family when they knew they had “won.” I found it interesting that it didn’t reveal what the lottery was for until the very end with the stoning of the wife. Mr Sommers was a casual character through it all, calmly announcing each head of the family to come up and draw a slip of paper. The tension in the wait, the reveal of who had the dreaded black coal dot, the drawing of the family member who would be stoned, it was all very well written and held my attention completely. At the beginning of the story, the author tells of the boys picking up the smoothest and roundest stones and putting them in piles in the corner. I enjoyed the description of the black box, how it has changed over the years and how the current one has been around longer than the towns’ oldest member. Where it’s stored seemed to be a small yet intriguing detail that added depth and personality to the story. The end left me wanting more to see how it all played out.

1: Morally, I couldn’t and would have found a way out of, participating in the lottery, especially the stoning at the end. I don’t know what purpose stoning an individual would show, much like the idea of the Hunger Games.

2: After reading the story, I knew I had to read it again to fully understand the process of the Lottery. What was its purpose? Why involve the children; Even the youngest of them? I kept going back to the Hunger Games series and why the children were chosen to participate in the games. It was to help the districts remember the war they went through years ago so it never happened again. It got me wondering, if this story continued, would the same outcome happen? Would they rebel against the lottery and rise to make it end?