There’s some controversy brewing on social media over a book a Coloma Junior High School teacher gave to some students. The book, John Green’s Looking for Alaska, explores young love, but not all parents like the idea of their kids reading it. Speaking to the Berrien County Board of Commissioners Thursday, Victory Woodall asked commissioners to urge the Coloma Community Schools Board of Education to call an emergency meeting over the book being given to seventh graders.
“This is a pretty big issue and we really would like for the Coloma school board to call an emergency meeting and address this,” Woodall said. “The people in my group, Berrien County Parents for School Freedoms, will be emailing the board calling for a zero tolerance policy on sexually explicit material. That means we want it out of the libraries, we don’t want teachers to be able to have it in their personal collections in their rooms, we don’t want it passed out to children. Zero tolerance, as far as we’re concerned.”
John Green’s Looking for Alaska has received several awards. According to the American Library Association, it’s also one of the most banned books. John Green told ABC 57 his book is not pornographic and is “about loss and grief and radical hope.”
