Gresh shies away from the series’s romantic story lines, focusing instead on the dark, dystopian aspects of the books. Toward the beginning of The Hunger Games Companion, Gresh writes: “The reader can’t help but wonder if our society is heading toward the same problems depicted in the world of The Hunger Games.” Gresh draws parallels between the novels and the current financial crisis and America’s materialism, as well as post-9/11 torture methods, invasions of privacy, and decreases in civil liberties. Historical “Doomsday Predictions” sidebars are scattered throughout the text; an appendix offers various end-of-the-world scenarios. While Gresh does give some insight (most notably in her chapter on medicine and poison), it feels as though her primary aim is not to analyze and supplement the books but rather to incite fear of the future in her readers.

The Hunger Games and its sequels are certainly disturbing; I avoided reading them for years, worried that I would be as thoroughly distressed as I was while reading Lord of the Flies. (Curiously, though Gresh discusses several dystopian classics like Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, she does not mention Lord of the Flies—not even in the chapter entitled “Killer Kids: How Responsible Are They?”) But Collins’s trilogy is not just a fictitious warning of what the world could become or a tragic account of a political system run amok. The Hunger Games trilogy is also a story of love, loyalty, friendship, and courage. It’s a shame that Gresh gives little thought to the series’s poignant moments of humanity.

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Unfortunately, The Lorax Garden app (Oceanhouse Media) pales in comparison. The aim of the app is to restore barren forests by digitally raising flowers and Truffula trees. The process of doing so is unnecessarily complicated and seems to involve more steps than growing an actual tree.

First, you must choose one of five locations, each with a forest in need of a facelift. To be successfully revived, every forest needs a different amount of full-grown Truffulas, ranging from three to nine. In the world of The Lorax Garden, raising a Truffula tree requires a combination of “care hearts,” water, and time. When you enter a new location, you receive ten care hearts, but they run out quickly. Though the needed number varies, it can take more than half of your allotted care hearts to raise one full-grown Truffula tree. To get more care hearts, you must grow one of six varieties of flowers, requiring water, pollination, and weeding—all in under a minute, as the section is timed. Growing each type of flower differs in difficulty and in how many care hearts you earn.

Are you confused yet? Me too.

Here’s what I know for sure: reviving one of the forests in The Lorax Garden is a fairly significant investment of time. Add the time it takes to grow flowers to that required to grow a Truffula tree and you’re looking at well over an hour to restore a forest of nine Truffulas. But don’t worry: you probably won’t finish. Unless you’re one of those people who have to finish what they’ve started, you’ll be frustrated and/or terribly bored after growing just one or two Truffula trees. And if The Lorax Garden can’t hold the attention of a book- and garden-loving adult like myself, it surely won’t be a pleasant experience for children.

So do yourself and your children a favor. Forgo The Lorax Garden app. Read the picture book with your kids and use the $1.99 the app would have cost to buy a sapling or some seeds—real ones, not the pixelated kind brought to you by the Apple device of your choice. Plant them in your yard and bring The Lorax to life. Dr. Seuss would have preferred it that way.

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