Banned Books I Enjoyed #2

As part of Banned Books week, I will be doing a series of posts promoting books that I enjoyed but were challenged and/or banned. You may recognise them.

Title: Looking For Alaska
Author: John Green
Publisher: Dutton
Read In: December 2010

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps." Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Looking for Alaska has been banned/challenged on multiple occasions. This is usually because of the offencive language in the book. I understand that swearing is an issue in society and is not pleasant to be around someone who is swearing all time. Even I don't want to hear that. The swearing used in this book is to describe the character. They are not real. I understand it is inappropriate for young children to be surrounded my vulgar language. They are impressionable at that age. However this book was challenged in high schools. Teenagers of that age should be old enough to understand the differences and not go around copying what they read.

Looking for Alaska has a great message and, even though I read it a while ago now, I definitely enjoyed it. I think this is a great book and if more people get to study it as part of their English class, even better.

Becky

Source: http://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/books/lookingforalaska.asp