John Green’s bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars, which was adapted into what became one of the year’s most profitable films, has been banned from the Riverside Unified School District middle schools in California. The ban surfaces after a challenge from a parent, Karen Krueger, who deemed the book’s content inappropriate for her children, reported the Vanity Fair.
The novel centralises the lives of two terminally-ill teenagers, who fall in love with each other. Slamming it for its morbid plot and crude language, Kruger said, “I just didn’t think it was appropriate for a child who is 11, 12 or 13-years-old.” With a six-to-one vote, Krueger managed to convince a principal, a committee of teachers, parents and a librarian to pull the novel out of the middle schools.
A committee member and principal of one of the Riverside middle schools, Betsy Schemechel, commented, “The thing that kept hitting me like a tidal wave was these kids dealing with their own mortality, and how difficult reading this book might be for an 11-year-old or 12-year-old.”
Making a satirical comment on the ban, Green wrote, “I guess, I am both happy and sad. I am happy because, apparently, young people in Riverside, California, will never witness or experience mortality since they won’t be reading my book, which is great for them.”
He added, “But I am also sad because I was really hoping I would be able to introduce the idea that human beings die to the children of Riverside, California, and thereby, crush their dreams of immortality.”
Published in The Express Tribune, October 1st, 2014.
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