--- title: John Green Fault in Our Stars Banned from California Middle School description: Add The Fault in Our Stars to the list of amazing books that have been banned from schools. canonical: https://time.com/3444896/john-green-fault-in-our-stars-banned/ author: Megan Gibson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-29T13:02:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:03:16.268Z og:title: John Green's Response To "The Fault In Our Stars" Being Banned Is Perfect og:description: In case you needed anymore proof of the author's greatness og:url: https://time.com/3444896/john-green-fault-in-our-stars-banned/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd49afc3fb68ede7/6986a5ccd0b6f212003065ac/9780525478812m.jpg?branch=production&width=438&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 438 og:image:height: 246 og:image:alt: 9780525478812M og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John Green's Response To "The Fault In Our Stars" Being Banned Is Perfect twitter:description: In case you needed anymore proof of the author's greatness twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdd49afc3fb68ede7/6986a5ccd0b6f212003065ac/9780525478812m.jpg?branch=production&width=438&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # John Green's Response to _The Fault in Our Stars_ Being Banned Is Just Perfect > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Each week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published weekly. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-worth-2026q3/newsletters?i=758fbee3-fa5d-4e2c-b3f9-f70bb1bc325a&cr=time-nl-worth-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Behind the Scenes of the Fault in our Stars [Watch (HLS stream): Behind the Scenes of the Fault in our Stars](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wFZEN8j4.m3u8) (3:13)  _Published 2014-05-30. Behind the Scenes of the Fault in our Stars_ by [Megan Gibson](https://time.com/author/megan-gibson/) ## Megan Gibson Sep 29, 2014 1:02 PM UTC by [Megan Gibson](https://time.com/author/megan-gibson/) ## Megan Gibson Sep 29, 2014 1:02 PM UTC Add _The Fault in Our Stars_ to the [list of amazing books](http://time.com/3418361/banned-books-week/) that have been [banned](http://www.pe.com/articles/book-750585-school-committee.html) from schools.  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](http://www.pe.com/articles/book-750585-school-committee.html?fb%5Faction%5Fids=10204711463887625&fb%5Faction%5Ftypes=og.comments) of the book from library shelves at Frank Augustus Miller Middle School, the _Press Enterprise_ [reports](http://www.pe.com/articles/book-750585-school-committee.html). 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](http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/98410137503/hey-john-what-is-your-reaction-to-the-news-that-the), the author gave the following answer: --- > “” --- ## Transcript Thank you. Thanks for coming to Amsterdam with me. Thank you for letting me hijack your wish. [ LAUGH ] I play a young woman named Hazel Grace Lancaster, and she she has a cancer which affects her lungs. She has cancer in her lungs among other places. And so she can't breathe. So she's constantly breathing through this thing called a cannula, which is connected to an oxygen tank that she carries around everywhere with her. Throughout the course of the movie she falls in love with a young boy called Augustus Waters, who she meets in her support group. And through their love story discovers what's important in life, what's not important in life. Hazel and Gus meet at a cancer support group. They have kind of a meet cute in a hallway where they bump into each other and there's that moment where it's like, you know, magic might happen here. But when they actually, are in the cancer support group they have sort of an intellectual conversation about oblivion and what the meaning of life is, and they're kind of sparring with each other even though it's spoken to the whole group. And I think that's the main reason they connect. They just like, their wit and their intelligence, is a match for each other. Oh and how are you doing Hazel? Alright, I guess. I started writing the Fault in our Stars in 2000, when I was. Working as a student chaplain in a children's hospital. I worked there for about seven months and I really wanted to write a story, a love story about sick kids who were as I knew them funny and full of life and great fun to be around. But I had a lot of trouble getting into the story ad so it actually took seven or eight years before I really started to make. Any progress, and a lot of the reason I was eventually able to write the book was because of my friend Chip with a young woman named Esther Earl to whom the book is dedicated. Esther died of cancer when she was 16 in 2010. But our friend Chip and her, the joy that she had in her life. Were huge inspirations for the book. I did not use you. Your dying wish's to go to Disney World. I was 13 and I, you know, what, it was actually. [ UNKNOWN ] summer. Oh my God. That's the saddest thing I've every heard. Everybody feels the way Hazel and Gus feels, these aren't unique feelings. These aren't. Unique themes or intense story lines or universal truths that no one else has ever discovered. But the way that John is able to articulate these facts and manipulate the words into a way, in a way that makes you both empasa, empathize with them. And yet, and relate to them and feel angered by them and hurt by them and excited by them. He just has this really beautiful gift of being able to write. You're just gonna leave affected and it's really nice to feel. And I don't think that enough of us feel on a daily basis, or I think a lot of us feel on a daily basis, we just don't acknowledge our feelings. 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