Looking For Alaska

by John Green
This entry was created for the Fall 2014 semester by Kristen Kelley.
Why Banned: Bad for Children

Banning History:

Looking for Alaska has been challenged several times in high school curriculums across the United States. It was challenged in 2008 in Depew, New York by the 11th grade Regents English classes by parents. The school decided to send permission slips to the parents of students in the class saying that they were comfortable or not comfortable with their child reading Looking for Alaska. Only three children’s parents said they could not read the book. The majority of backlash for the school’s decision in including Alaska in its curriculum was by parents of children who were not even in the class. Their objection to the book was that it contained graphic language and sexual content. The school decided to keep the book despite the protest. Looking for Alaska was also challenged in Knox County Tennessee High School’s honors program in 2012 because one parent objected to the book being in the school due to “inappropriate language”. While the book was removed from class curriculum, the superintendent did not specify whether it was still allowed in the school. It was also banned in Tennessee in 2013 from a summer reading list for the same reasons. In 2014 Looking for Alaska was challenged in Verona High School in New Jersey because a parent complained that they found the sexual nature of the story as inappropriate.

Author Bio

John Green was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on August 24th, 1977. He grew up in Orlando, Florida and attended Kenyon College in Ohio for English and religious studies. Green then lived in Chicago for several years while writing “Looking for Alaska”. In Chicago, he worked for Booklist, the review journal, reviewing books particularly fiction books about Islam or conjoined twins. “Looking for Alaska” was Green's first novel and was put on the ALA 2005 Top 10 Best Books For Young Adults list, and won the Michael L. Printz award in 2006. Green's other novels include “An Abundance of Katherines” (2006), “Paper Towns” (2008), “Will Grayson, Will Grayson” (2010), which he collaborated with David Levithan, and “The Fault in Our Stars” (2012), which received the number one spot on The New York Times Best Seller List for Children. Green is also well known by his fans for his video blog that he and his brother created on YouTube called Brotherhood 2.0, through which they established a subculture of fans called Nerdfighters who fight for intellectualism and “to decrease the overall worldwide level of suck”. Green and his brother Hank have led the Nerdfighters to raise hundreds of thousand of dollars for charity as well as for projects such as planting trees.

Discussion Questions

1. In your opinion, what do you think the Labyrinth represents?

2. Why is it so important for Pudge and The Colonel to figure out whether Alaska's death was intentional or accidental?

3. Why do you think John Green kept Takumi as such a secondary character up until the last pages of the book?

4. Do you think Alaska's feelings for Pudge were real or were they just a way of escaping her problems, or were they wishfully interpreted by Pudge?

5. Based on the themes of the book that caused it to be challenged, do you think that these themes are harmful or rather are effective in teaching teens lessons about real life issues that they are or will be faced with?