There's this trilogy by some dude named Collins, and the first two books are about kids/people participating in a government game called "The Hunger Games". It's an annual event, and nobody looks forward to the game since it usually means the death of someone you love, know, or, if you're very unlucky, yourself.
In the universe of "The Hunger Games", North America is ruled by a nation known as "Panem". Panem is divided into fourteen sections: The Capitol, Districts 1-12, and an abandoned/destroyed/underground/whatever District 13. Each district is made up of a community of people, who have a main source of industry (lumber, coal, fishing, agriculture, etc.), though it is possible for people to work outside of their district's main industry if only to provide for everyone else/their family (bakeries and whatever). The Capitol is where the governmental people are, and you can say it's almost like a dictatorship or whatever.
In the history of Panem, the Districts tried to overthrow the Capitol because they felt it was unfair how those in the Capitol had everything they needed while those in the poorer Districts were poor and underfed. Of course, the Capitol won, and because of this uprising, the Capitol decreed that every year, a girl and a boy (called "tributes") between the ages of 12 and 18 are chosen in a drawing to participate in a gruesome event called the Hunger Games, totaling 24 kids who participate in this event every year. These kids are taken to some place to essentially fight to the death/be the last man standing, and whoever is the last survivor wins, and is given special rewards from the Capitol in the shape of food and a stuffs.
It is required for everyone in Panem to view the Hunger Games on TV, whether you like it or not. This is the Capitol's way of saying that "hey look, we can take your kids away and make them fight each other like animals, so you better not rebel against us again!"
When they're 12, the kids have their names entered once in the drawing for tributes. When they're 13, it's entered twice, and when they're 14, thrice (and so on). They can enter their name multiple times to get themselves and their family extra food, but the number of entries stack up every year. This means if you entered your name 3 times this year, you have to enter it at least 4 times next year, and so on.
An escort from the Capitol goes to each district and draws two names from whatever container that has everyone's names; one boy, one girl. Once someone's picked, they go up to the stage, when someone can volunteer to go in that person's place.
The 24 tributes, along with their mentors (people from their district who've won in the past) and their escort, are all packed into a train, where they basically get a lot of good food and stuffs. It takes less than a day for them to get to the Capitol, where their stylist put make-up on the kids and give them outfits which represent the industry they're from, before putting the tributes on carriages (complete with horses!), which send them to the Training Center. There, the tributes learn essential survival skills, like archery, camouflage, knot-tying, sword fighting, etc. for a few days; they're given some very good service these days. At the end, they show off what they've learned for the Gamemakers, who score them on a scale of 1 (being the lowest) to 12 (the highest). They get a final interview with some dude, and after a good night's rest, the games begin.
People can choose to sponsor a tribute if they liked the kid's performance in the tribute-picking (called reaping), carriage-to-Training-Center show, training scores, and interview. Usually, the prettier and wittier a tribute is are, the more the people will want to sponsor him/her. Sponsors basically give the tributes stuff that help them in the games, though it's the tribute's mentor who chooses whether or not to give them these gifts.
I'm sure I've made myself nice and clear now.
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