• Living
  • Education

John Green’s Response to The Fault in Our Stars Being Banned Is Just Perfect

2 minute read
By Megan Gibson

Add The Fault in Our Stars to the list of amazing books that have been banned from schools.

The Fault In Our Stars
Dutton Books

John Green’s young-adult novel about a pair of star-crossed teenagers who are both dying from cancer is an international best-seller and spawned a summer hit movie, starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as the doomed Hazel and Augustus. But it has also now been banned from the Riverside Unified School District middle schools in California.

The district’s book reconsideration committee voted six-to-one last week to pull all copies of the book from library shelves at Frank Augustus Miller Middle School, the Press Enterprise reports. The committee voted after one parent, Karen Krueger, made the case against young people reading a book on death, illness and sex, saying, “I just didn’t think it was appropriate for an 11-, 12-, 13-year-old to read. I was really shocked it was in a middle school.” Other committee members worried that tweens would struggle with the book’s themes of mortality.

When a fan asked Green what he thought of the decision on his Tumblr, the author gave the following answer:

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.

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.

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com