John Green’s young adult novel Looking for Alaska once more became the target of censorship when it was recently banned from classrooms in Sumner County, Tenn. The Kids’ Right to Read Project, a joint project of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), two national organizations that defend free speech and the freedom to read, is opposing the book’s removal.
In a letter sent to the Sumner County Director of Schools Del Phillips on May 14, the organizations expressed their alarm about the sudden and immediate removal of the book without following the procedures in the county’s own School Board policies.
“It is particularly disturbing that the complaint of one parent triggered a county-wide ban within the span of a single week, without following established procedure and without so much as a review of the literary and educational merits of the book,” the letter states, going on to note that, by removing the book, “the district has imposed one viewpoint on the entire student body, without regard to the educational consequences for students.”
