‘The Fault In Our Stars’ Joins The ‘Ban-Wagon’ During Banned Books Week

Best-selling novel, The Fault In Our Stars (TFIOS), has been banned from Riverside Unified School District’s Middle Schools. The ban was passed Monday, September 23, one day after the start of Banned Books Week. Banned Books Week was started in 1982 to ‘celebrate the freedom to read.’

If you’re in your teens, a fan of Young Adult novels or simply enjoy a good love story, you’ve probably heard of The Fault In Our Stars, a best-selling novel by John Green. Earlier this month, The Inquisitr reported on the popularity of the novel and the movie based on the book released this summer. According to an article published in June by The Washington Post, The Fault In Our Stars has sold approximately 10.7 million copies.

The novel follows the life of two teenagers who have cancer, but refuse to have their life experience reduced by it. TFIOS is a story of love, courage and strength in times of adversity. A New York Times article titled ‘The Tenacity of Hope’ and published in January of 2012, when the book was first released, described it as “a narrative without rainbows or flamingos.”

Krueger, a concerned parent, was obviously privy to this and asked the Riverside Unified School District to remove the book from the Middle School Library.

“The subject matter involves teens dying of cancer who use crude language and have sex. I just didn’t think it was appropriate for an 11-, 12-, 13-year-old to read.” – Karen Krueger

The Press Enterprise reported that, on Monday, Karen Krueger presented her case for the removal of The Fault In Our Stars from the shelves of the Frank Augustus Miller Middle School. Evidently, Krueger was not the only one who believed the book was inappropriate for Middle School students as the committee voted 6-1 in favor of having The Fault In Our stars banned from the school’s shelves.

“Since 1988, 37 books, including this one, have been challenged in the district. Until Monday, only one — Robert Cormier’s 1974 novel “The Chocolate War” — had been banned, and that was in 1996.” – The Press Enterprise

Age appropriateness is usually the cause of books being banned from schools and libraries alike. The main reasons books are banned are because of profanity, violence and sexual content. The Fault In Our Stars is classified as a Young Adult novel. Though there is no clear-cut definition of who or what a young adult is, it is fair to say that the name points to some level of maturity.

What say you readers? Is The Fault In Our Stars too mature for 13-year-olds?

“Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelic zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” – John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

Though we share your sentiments, John Green, some of those humans may have to wait a while.