Looking for Alaska, Finding Hope in an Imperfect World

Why I recommend Looking for Alaska to students, plus book ban news and links to make you smile.

Hi Friends!

This week I want to have look at a book that has been popping up on school library challenge and removal lists since it was pubIished in 2005. And yet it is still a favorite YA read and its author, John Green, has become one of the best-loved YA authors of all time. This discussion will be complete with major spoilers. I’m guessing if you are a reader and were in high school in the last fifteen years, you’ve read Looking for Alaska and already know the plot.

Last week I discussed an often challenged book, Killing Mr. Griffin. I noted that I found it pretty mild and that Lois Duncan was something of an Agatha Christie for teens. Looking for Alaska is perennially challenged as well, is always some censor’s target.¹ Right now, like Killing Mr. Griffin, it’s on the Mason City Community School District list of books that were removed after an AI scan for sexual content. 

Bad behaviors and nuanced writing

Looking for Alaska has so many teen behaviors that adults worry about or have outright objections to. The teens go to a boarding school, so they pretty much behave like they’re in college, experimenting with many things: sex, drugs, drinking, smoking. They play dangerous pranks, but they have philosophical discussions. They are sorting out the meaning of life, the meaning of friendship, and the value of honesty. They are working through grief at a too-early stage of life. So—it’s a far more nuanced book than Killing Mr. Griffin. Typically, objections to it include that it: is sexually explicit, including sexual encounters; includes foul language, underage drinking, and smoking as well as dishonest characters, and hazing. 

I bought so many copies of this novel for my school library that I lost track of the number. Copies would fall apart from having been read so many times. I book-talked it to classes (i.e., I encouraged students to read it, recommended it) repeatedly. 

Why would I promote a book that has bad and dangerous behaviors?

I first read Looking for Alaska in 2010. Here was my take then, in a review I wrote before I’d ever talked to anyone about the novel:

Since I loved Will Grayson so much, I had to read Looking for Alaska, also by John Green. Like Will Grayson, it’s alternately very funny and very sad; it’s always very edgy. (Yes, it’s on the list of banned/challenged books. Yes, it’s for mature readers, not twelve-year-olds.) The subject matter is different from Will Grayson—and yet still very relevant.

Miles Halter is pretty much a nerd. When he decides to go away to a private boarding school, leaving Florida for Alabama, his mother insists on throwing him a party to which only two people, mere acquaintances, come. And Miles’ goal becomes immediately obvious—he wants to get away and live life more deeply. He wants to explore ‘the great perhaps’ an idea he got from reading the last words of Francois Rabelais. (In fact, Miles loves reading biographies to discover famous last words. And he knows a lot of good quotes of dying men and women. That in itself is really fun to read about.)

As soon as he arrives at Culver Creek Boarding School, Miles begins to understand and live ‘the great perhaps’ because he has met the right people/pranksters: his roommate Chip (‘the Colonel’) and Alaska Young, the beautiful girl with whom he is immediately infatuated. The Colonel nicknames Miles ‘Pudge,’ ironically because he is so skinny.

Alaska is sometimes cheery and manic and at other times moody and brooding. She is a feminist who tutors her friends in pre-calc and who can’t resist a good prank. Away from home, the ‘Pudge-Colonel-Alaska’ trio experiments with many off-limits adult habits. Alaska tells Miles that while other teens smoke because they enjoy it, she does it because it will kill her. Clearly, she is troubled, but for much of the novel, no one knows why. What causes Alaska to be self-destructive?

The novel has two sections—chapters titled ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Miles finds that Alaska is also a seeker but she has used Simon Bolivar’s last words to frame her quest: “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” And this, too, is what Miles truly wants to know and must learn.

Spoilers

It’s true all of the things censors object to are in the novel, just as they are in real life. But they aren’t glorified or given as examples to emulate, and that’s always an important consideration when we ask if a book contributes to a school’s mission.

What I didn’t say in that review from 2010 is that the framing of ‘before’ and ‘after’ are ‘before Alaska’s death’ and ‘after Alaska’s death.’ It’s unusual to have a major character die in the middle of a novel, but it’s important here because what follows is how the others deal with Alaska’s death and their grief.  They must explore ‘the great perhaps’ and deal with the labyrinth of life.

Grieving her mother’s death, Alaska is sometimes sad/depressed. When she drives drunk and dies in a car crash, it’s uncertain whether it genuinely was an accident or whether she intended to kill herself. That her friends allowed her to drive when they knew she was drunk leads to deep remorse and their investigation to find out what really happened. They aren’t able to come up with an answer. And, as I always say, it’s much better to experience this sort of thing through reading than IRL.

On his website, John Green answers the question “Can you explain the end of Looking for Alaska?” And while I know some readers really want to know if Alaska died by suicide, I think what ALL readers get out of the novel—why the book continues to find new readers after almost twenty years—is spelled out in Green’s answer:

Well, when I was writing “Alaska,” I wanted the end NOT to give us what we want, which is of course to know whether Alaska’s death was a suicide or an accident. The truth is that in our lives we are all going to encounter questions that should be answered, that deserve to be answered, and yet prove unanswerable. Can we find meaning to life without those answers? Can we find a way to acknowledge the reality (and injustice) of suffering without giving in to hopelessness? Those are the questions I think Miles is confronting at the end, and I wanted to argue that through forgiveness, it is possible to live a full and hopeful life—even if our world is saturated with injustice and loss.

A novel that deals with unanswerable questions. A novel that shows teens that forgiveness leads to a full and hopeful life, even in a deeply imperfect world. Should we make that book available to teens?

Looking for Alaska is a novel high school students will benefit from reading. I don’t regret introducing them to it. 

Interesting/fun links for this week

Quote that I borrowed from Sojourners:

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do. - Wendell Berry

A feel good article! Especially if you love dogs!

A popular nature park was trampled by overuse. Dogs came to the rescue. From the Washington Post

“People were loving our urban nature reserve to death,” said Dylan Walker, manager of a British restoration project that used dogs to seed the ground. 

I thought this was so funny—people drop the craziest crap off at the library and act like they’re doing everyone a big favor. 

I’d Like to Donate It to the Library by Caitlin C. Baker from the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest 2024  

Some love for librarians who are writers:

15 Authors Who Started As Librarians from ElectricLit (@electriclit on Substack appears to be inactive.)

I started Lolita years ago and was unable to get very far because the protagonist’s POV was so repulsive. This essay makes me think I will try again. 

#SheToo: Nabokov’s Lolita

What I’m Reading

The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf

I was looking for some creepy stories without gore. The New York Review of Books publishes a lot of classics, and this novella is one I ordered from them. While it starts slowly and may not be to the taste of many modern readers, I did find the deal with the devil and the result of that deal to be spine chilling. The deadly black spider and its birth reminded me of the film The Believers (1987), directed by John Schlesinger and starring Martin Sheen, Jimmy Smitts, and Robert Loggia. So—one element of the horror in the movie continues more than 100 years after the publication of the story.

I finished Circle of Hope by Eliza Griswold.

I really enjoyed it despite the fact that the Circle (church) dissolves over differences. It’s an interesting look into left-of-center Christianity and people who want to live out the radical message of Jesus. I’m going to try to write a book review when I get a chance. 

Part 2: Library and book ban/challenge news

This Election Will Determine the Fate of Libraries from Time (says the quiet part out loud):

It’s no wonder teachers and librarians are leaving the profession in droves. Perhaps that is the goal because this very same extremist crowd pushes charter schools and privatizing libraries. If they are able to devalue public schools and libraries, they funnel money through charter schools and private libraries that are not under the same obligation to provide access for everyone in the community. Then children can be indoctrinated into the same religious, political, and authoritarian beliefs that tend to further discriminate against historically marginalized communities.

Most Americans Oppose School Book Bans and Restrictions: New Research Supports Freedom to Read from Book Riot

That’s not to say adults are not concerned nor caught up in the rhetoric around “inappropriate” books in school libraries. Six out of 10 believed that “appropriateness” was a legitimate reason to restrict book access. Of note, though, is that “appropriateness” here does not apply to books that contradict the political, moral, or religious views of the parent. In other words, “appropriateness” here is not about topics like diversity, queerness, social-emotional learning, climate change, and other issues that have been the target of the book banning agenda. Despite the fears about “appropriateness,” only seven percent of parents who had a child of reading age reported their child had borrowed a book they deemed inappropriate. This number parallels that found in the EveryLibrary and Book Riot research. More than nine out of ten children select, borrow, and read books their parents deem appropriate.

Hell hath no fury like a librarian scorned in the book banning wars from the LA Times

Jones’ cautionary and disquieting testament to the nation’s divisiveness is told in her new memoir, “That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America,” a blunt, angry, searching and redeeming story about a woman engulfed by forces and designs she never imagined. It is a glimpse into a family and a small town that reads like a chapter out of “The Scarlet Letter” or “The Crucible,” narratives whose themes of fear, superstition, rage and religion are again permeating the nation’s political moment, including Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s recent comments that “Democrats want to put sexually explicit books in toddlers’ libraries.”

And here’s a nice interview of this same librarian (Amanda Jones) in the NYT. Thanks to reader Ellen Estilai for pointing it out!

Tom Batiuk to Launch Book Banning Series in Crankshaft Comic Strip from the Daily Cartoonist

Supervisor Lawson-Remer proposes policy to ensure 'banned books' are available [in San Diego Co. public libraries] from CBS8

"We are standing up for democracy and working to keep literature from being censored in San Diego County," said Lawson-Remer, vice chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. "A significant portion of the bans happening across our country are targeting books representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC people. With this policy, we're protecting your right to read and fighting back against racism and bigotry."

The policy includes several suggestions, including supporting an Assembly Bill requiring state-funded libraries to create a written policy for the creation of book collections, preventing library boards from "banning or restricting the circulation of any materials based on their topics or the views, ideas, or opinions expressed in them," as well as directing the Chief Administrative Officer to recognize Banned Book Week, and have the county acquire and make available hard and/or digital copies of banned books to ensure access at each county library location.

Discrimination complaint filed over book bans in Menomonee Falls School District from Wisconsin Public Radio

Menomonee Falls parents have filed a discrimination complaint against the school district after more than 30 books were removed from the library including one for preschoolers depicting same-sex families. 

Michelle and Jesse Cramer, who have two young children in the district, said the books’ removal means Menomonee Falls children aren’t getting the same education as students in neighboring districts.

In October 2023, The School District of Menomonee Falls pulled 33 books from the shelves after deeming them too “sexually explicit” for students. 

Michelle Cramer said that was bad enough. 

But when she found out “Love Makes a Family,” by Sophie Beer was pulled from the supplemental materials offered to 4K parents at Shady Lane Elementary School last month, she decided to act. 

Francis Howell school board will restrict books, conversation about gender identity from St. Louis Public Radio

A decision by the Francis Howell School District board to ban books with certain content has alarmed some students, parents and teachers.

The school board on Thursday approved by a 5-2 vote a proposal that bans books containing "explicit descriptions of sexual conduct," alcohol and drug use, repeated profanity and "purposeful conduct that injures the body or property of another in a manner that would be a crime." [Vic’s note: Looking for Alaska would be removed under these rules.]

Shana Youngdahl, an associate professor of writing at Lindenwood University, said the policy would keep students from reading important books, among them “Maus: A Survivor's Tale,” a graphic novel about the Holocaust.

…

Books previously owned by the schools that do not meet the new guidelines may remain in the libraries. However, another policy the board approved Thursday allows any district resident or staff member to request their removal — effective immediately. Such books would not return to shelves until they received approval from the conservative-majority school board.

“If a teacher or staff member or administrator feels that this book is too important to the education of students and cannot be replaced … we'll certainly consider an exception,” Cook said.

Samantha Martin, a recent Francis Howell Central graduate, said she worries that students would not be able to read books like “The Kite Runner,” by Afghan American author Khaled Hosseini.

Martin, who read the book in an English classroom, fears the novel, among the most challenged books in the U.S., could be banned under the new policy because it depicts sexual assault.

“It's been around for ages … those are the books that are being put into jeopardy by policies like this,” Martin said. “In schools, we're supposed to be taught things that will prepare us for the world to come, for life outside of high school. I don't think that school is able to do that if we're censoring everything that comes into it.”

1. See here for a history of some challenges over the years to Looking for Alaska.