Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Suzanne Collins’ novel Sunrise on the Reaping.As the protagonist of The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen has a sort of looming presence over both prequels to the trilogy so far, and the one released in 2025 more explicitly reveals details about her family tree. Sunrise on the Reaping largely follows the 50th Hunger Games, during which Katniss’ future mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, tries to act in the interest of an agenda against the Capitol, which doesn’t always mean him planning on being the victor. This novel nearly ties all the Hunger Games installments together, through the people Haymitch interacts with in District 12.

Previously, Suzanne Collins released The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel following a young Coriolanus Snow as he mentors the female tribute from District 12 in the 10th Hunger Games, Lucy Gray Baird. Lucy Gray comes from the nomadic group called the Covey, who are musicians by trade and were confined to District 12 following the first rebellion. There have long been theories that Katniss and Lucy Gray are related somehow, and Sunrise on the Reaping all but confirms this.

Sunrise On The Reaping Reveals Katniss’ Father Burdock Is A Covey Cousin

Burdock Everdeen Is Somehow Related To Lenore Dove Baird

Suzanne Collins seems to have written this plot point as intentionally vague but does give us all we need to ᴀssume it. Sunrise on the Reaping confirms that Katniss’ parents’ names are Burdock Everdeen and Asterid March. Burdock was a childhood friend to Haymitch, who convinced him to go into the woods outside for the first time when Haymitch was 10, upon which occasion he officially met Lenore Dove. Lenore Dove is said to be a Baird, but was raised by Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber, two other Covey members who are side characters in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Burdock refers to Lenore Dove as “cuz,” and Haymitch says: “She wasn’t one of Burdock’s Everdeen cousins, but I knew he had some distant ones on his ma’s side.” Seemingly, this establishes that Burdock’s mother is also Covey. Sunrise on the Reaping never returns to talk more about the relationship between Burdock and Lenore Dove, more focused on confirming their separate relations to Katniss and Lucy Gray. However, these comments would be strange things to include in the story if they were not meant to support the long-standing Katniss-Lucy Gray theory.

Who Is Katniss’ Grandmother?

The Most Likely Candidates Are Barb Azure Or Lucy Gray

There are only six Covey characters in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, all children-to-teenagers who live together and look after themselves as their parents were all killed by peacekeepers. Billy Taupe dies during the events of this book; Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber are suggested to only have Lenore Dove as a child; and Maude Ivory seems to be Lenore Dove’s mother, and died in childbirth. Lucy Gray apparently fled District 12, but possibly still could have returned without the Capitol knowing, especially if she married and changed her last name.

When Haymitch visits Lenore Dove’s grave, there are also headstones for Maude Ivory and Lucy Gray, with it not being said if the Covey made it in her honor after she disappeared or if she eventually came back and is actually buried there. It is technically still not impossible that Lucy Gray is Katniss’ grandmother, but the one that seems less complicated is Barb Azure. As Barb Azure is Madue Ivory’s cousin, if she were Burdock’s mother, he and Lenore Dove would be second cousins.

It has also been 40 years since the 10th Hunger Games in Sunrise on the Reaping, just enough time for two new generations to come of age, and Barb Azure seems to be one of the older teenagers in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, so she could maybe be Burdock’s grandmother. Haymitch does characterize Burdock’s relationship with these cousins as “distant,” but this might also just be because the Covey broke up a bit as they grew up and had their own families, and are no longer a visible unit all living together.

The Full Covey-Everdeen Family Tree Explained

The Lineage of Katniss, Lucy Gray, & Lenore Dove

Prior to the districts’ first rebellion, the Covey traveled around performing but were forced into District 12 where the adults were all killed, and the children left to fend for themselves. Lucy Gray’s two older siblings were also killed. This left the three Baird cousins — Lucy Gray, Maude Ivory, and Barb Azure — to live with brothers Clerk Carmine and Billy Taupe Clade, as well as Tam Amber. Billy Taupe was essentially disowned by the Covey after cheating on Lucy Gray with the mayor’s daughter Mayfair, who had her father rig the reaping to send Lucy Gray to the Hunger Games.

Maude Ivory had Lenore Dove with an unknown man, possibly of District 12’s Chance family. Lenore Dove was raised by Tam Amber and Clerk Carmine, neither of whom married, but Clerk Carmine has a secret long-term relationship with a man who works in the town. Burdock is presumably a descendant of Barb Azure, and he married Asterid, the daughter of the merchants who owned the town’s apothecary, and had Katniss and Primrose.

Hunger Games fans have delighted in searching for connections between the protagonists of each era, and Sunrise on the Reaping leans into this more than ever. The newest book makes this seem like it has always, in some ways, been a story of one family over several generations who tried multiple times to better the world they lived in before the right person and set of circumstances finally came along.

The Hunger Games

Created by

Suzanne Collins

First Film

The Hunger Games

Cast

Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Lenny Kravitz, Willow Shields, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman

<ʙuттon type="ʙuттon" class="show-more-new icon i-chevron-down-solid">Expand

See at Amazon

See at Best Buy

See at Walmart