Should John Green's Looking For Alaska Be Banned?

Because of offensive language and ideas that are represented in the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, it has been banned in many school libraries and lessons. One of the main reasons that it was banned in school is because of offensive words like the n-word and also because of the fact that the plot is centered around rape. One of the school board members, Kenny Holloway, said, “We can teach the same lessons with other books.” Many people agree with Holloway’s opinion, saying that the same ideas that are represented in To Kill A Mockingbird could be taught with a less controversial book. However, other people say that students are tough enough to handle the story. While many people don’t think that this book is appropriate for school, some people

All around the world, certain books are being banned or challenged in school districts often because the material is considered sexually explicit, unsuited for the age group, or includes offensive language or actions.

Banned for its’ “pornographic” mention of adultery and obscenity of redemption for a sinner, The Scarlet Letter, is a novel based on a woman and her child in a town of hatred, religion, and the ugly truth.Challenged for the wrong reasons, The Scarlet Letter shows real Puritan reactions to sin and modern day feminism. A classic banned book and read by many classes just to prove the injustice of keeping the hypocrisy of the people in the book silenced. The exact reasons that this book got banned and is still up for interrogation should be the reason it’s talked about in every classroom and have a lot more credit for its’ bluntness in such a fragile state of time.

It covers adult themes … that most students have not been exposed to and should not be provided by the school. It is a novel that has no life lesson to be learned”(Gomez). A middle school in Minnesota had this book in their library and parents did not approve of their children reading it, because it has explicit scenes in the book. The parents of this community had a meeting in December 2015, talking about if the book should be banned or not. When the meeting was over, the book Just One Day, was banned in Minnesota schools entirely, and parents were happy that the book was finally

According to the American Library Association (ALA), young adult novels are challenged with the best intentions. In most cases a parent will read a book that their child might be reading in class to find out if the book is hazardous to their child’s well-being. If the novel seems problematic, the parent then challenges the book. Even though the purpose of challenging a novel is to keep children from reading about issues that may not be seen as appropriate for their age group, censoring children from difficult subject matter is not always the solution. There is always controversy when difficult issues arise in adolescent geared novels. Even though there are many concerns with Lois Lowry’s The Giver,

Her first non-children’s book was Fever 1793, although she took a yearlong break from that book to write Speak (Lew 23-25), her first true young adult novel. As she began writing for teens instead of children, she also began writing about more controversial issues, such as the rape and depression in Speak. Anderson has become “knownfor writing realistic books about controversial subjects for teens” (Deutsch). Not only does she write about these difficult topics, she approaches them with “humor and sensitivity” and “her work has earned numerous national and state awards, as well as international recognition” (“Laurie”). Speak itself was a National Book Award finalist and is a Pritz honor book the year it first came out (Lew 34). Despite this recognition, Wesley Scroggins, a Missouri State University professor, called the book “soft pornography,” and demanded that it be taken out of school curriculum (qtd. in Lew 35). Judy Blume, Anderson’s favorite author, backed Anderson in this situation, calling the claim “outrageous” (Lew 35). Clearly, Blume and Anderson won the battle because “[Speak has] been used in schools in order to not only teach literary analysis but also to teach and give students tools against sexual harassment” (“Voice”). The response to Speak can be better understood by learning about the time it was written.

Public schools are becoming more laid back about what they teach in each subject to make it less uncomfortable for individuals to talk about; for example, sex education is taught in schools more in depth and at an earlier age today than in the past to make it easier for people to talk about sex in a more mature manner. Banning books that contain sexual content, vulgarity, and violence give children and young adults a reason to snicker about these topics when discussed in class because we are taught that these topics are not appropriate to talk about publicly. There are many factors that play a major role in how an individual perceives certain topics in books. If taught at an earlier age that these topics are suitable for mature

The practice of banning books in the United States is still present today. This essay looks to explore how Looking for Alaska by John Green has dealt with contemporary censorship issues. The novel was published in the year of 2005, and within the same year the teen book claimed the number one spot on a list of controversial books. To many people's surprise, the novel was even higher on the list than other known books such as Fifty Shades of Grey. So what making Looking for Alaska so bad to put it at the top? Is it the fact that the novel is descriptive and realistic of teenagers life? Reality needs to be known, it is reality that makes readers understand the dangers of things such as usage of alcohol. Although the novel Looking For Alaska by

Banning or challenging books is an occurrence that has been taking place for years in America’s school systems, but often parents and teachers are not in agreement concerning censorship. The National Council of Teachers of English position statement is “We can safely make two statements about censorship: first, any work is potentially open to attack by someone, somewhere, sometime, for some reason; second, censorship is often arbitrary and irrational.” One such challenged book is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, which was “banned from an eighth-grade classroom in Arizona due to profanity, sexual content, and rape theme” (Lesesne and Chance 48). Even though it presents difficult topics, Speak could be a benefit to students in a

​​Should it be acceptable to implement obscene literature in the education curriculum, even at the cost of one’s moral beliefs? Fun Home, written by Alison Bechdel, is a graphic memoir that illustrates the relationship of the character Alison with her father, Bruce. Although they did not share an intimate father-daughter bond in Alison’s childhood, Alison grows up to bear many of her father’s traits, such as being queer. Unfortunately, her memories with her father are short-lived, as her father commits suicide when she turned twenty. As a result, she attempts to unlock her closeted father’s life and understand his struggles. A recurring theme throughout Fun Home is sexuality and is often demonstrated through

Throughout John Green’s novel, Looking For Alaska the reader comes across various scenes that include drunk driving, underage drinking and smoking, and offensive language. While I can understand why some parents or staff would want the novel banned, I do not agree that it should be. The first example is when the highschool students went out into a barn and spent the night drinking together and occasionally smoked cigarettes, “I’m sure I tasted like stale booze and cigarettes, but she didn’t notice” (122), this can raise problems for parents who don’t want their children reading material that can negatively influence them. Another example is when Alaska wakes up after they had gotten drunk the previous night and tells Miles and the Colonel

It seems natural to think about novels in terms of dreams or psychoanalytical realities. Like dreams, novels are fictions, inventions of the mind that, though based on reality, are by definition not exactly and literally true. Conversely, dreams may have some truth to tell but like novels their truth must be interpreted before it can be grasped. Such is the case with John Green's young adult novel, Looking for Alaska. It holds many truths that are relevant to young adults, but to extract those lessons, one must first view the plot and characters through a lens of psychoanalytical theory.

An excellent example of a book in question containing sexual content is The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier, which ranked number 5 on the ACLU's list. Now considering the fact that this frequently banned book is written for young adults of middle and high school age, I'm sure the author included this content, and the often graphic language associated with such content, because it made the book more realistic and possibly because it made the novel more appealing to the age bracket. Fiction is not the only genre faced with banning and censorship. Educational books such as the sex education text It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris and The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsmanare under attack because they discuss sex-related topics. All I have to say about this is sexuality is a fact of life, not some forbidden subject.

I chose the novel “Looking for Alaska” by John Green, because I already read a reading sample in my English lessons in Germany from this book and I really liked the style of writing the author used. I also chose this novel, because many of my friends said it was a good book and worth reading, besides the fact, that the book is well-known for some of its quotes (“If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane”) and the awards it won (Michael L. Printz Award). The author is also known for his book “The fault in our stars”, which is another one of his four books.

Looking for Alaska is the story of a group of teens who attend a boarding school just outside of Birmingham, Alabama. The story begins when Miles “Pudge” Halter chooses to leave his mundane life in Florida behind in order to seek a great perhaps. In search of his great perhaps Pudge finds himself at Culver Creek Boarding School, where he meets Chip “The Colonel” Martin and Alaska Young. They introduce Pudge to the ways of the school, pranking, smoking, and drinking. Pudge develops a crush on Alaska, and the two flirt often but never do anything because Alaska has a boyfriend. Alaska introduces Pudge to the labyrinth, the maze of life in which we are all lost. Alaska struggles with the question of how we get out of our labyrinth; Pudge and the Colonel struggle with the question of how you forgive someone for getting out of the labyrinth and what happens once you’re