John Green -- Author Profile

Dr. P. Rothbauer

LIS 9364: Young Adult Materials

12 October 2011

John Green has created a cult of personality through his writing of young adult literature.  While the details of his early life are somewhat vague, what can be traced is very revealing as inspiration for the characters in his novels. Born in Orlando,  Florida in 1977, Green received the better part of his elementary and high school education at Indian Springs Boarding School in Alabama. Not surprisingly, one of his protagonists grew up with nearly identical circumstances and offers a glimpse into his experience as a teenager. Currently, he lives in Indiana, Indianapolis with his wife, Sarah, and baby, Henry. Green also keeps a regular vlog on YouTube with his brother Hank. Initiating in 2007, the brothers agreed to contact each other only by video, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Since then, vlogbrothers has become a YouTube sensation with millions of views on their videos (which are mostly musings about life, literature, science, and anything in between). Through their YouTube following, John and Hank have undertaken several charity projects to “decrease world suck.”

Since the publishing of his first book, Looking for Alaska, in 2005, Green has enjoyed immense success both in  North America and overseas from readers and critics alike. Alaska earned him the prestigious young adult literature award, the Printz Prize in 2006. The same year, Green received several awards from highly sought-after prizes from both the literary and library community. Looking for Alaska was selected by the New York Public Library as the “Book for the Teenage.” Additionally, it proved very popular on teen readers’ book awards lists – which speaks volumes for his ability to attract readers from his target audience. Throughout 2006, Green won a place on the  Top 10 Best Book for Young Adults,  the Teens’ Top 10 Award, and the Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers.

His next book, An Abundance of Katherines in 2006 was also well-received. Indeed, the reviews positively glow from a variety of well-respected publications. The New York Times  “Imagine an operating room at the start of a daring but well-rehearsed procedure and you will have something of the atmosphere of ”An Abundance of Katherines”: every detail considered, the action unrolling with grace and inevitability.” Although it was not nominated for any awards, it remains a favourite on the blogosphere and many young adult readers. 2008’s Paper Towns was something of a departure from Green’s usual style of writing and is his first foray into the mystery genre. Not only did it receive very positive reviews from VOYA, School Library Journal, and Booklist, it won the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery.

After a long wait, Green’s novel Will Grayson, Will Grayson, which he co-authored with young adult author David Levithan, was published in 2010. This novel received a considerable amount of positive attention. Will Grayson, Will Grayson debuted at number three on the New York Times’ Children’s Best Seller List – the first time a novel with a gay protagonist made the list. Green fans are currently anxiously awaiting his latest novel, The Fault in Our Stars, to be released later this year. However, reviews from those who have been able to read the pre-order copy of the book have been, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly positive. At the end of each book, Green tends to add in some reflection questions, as suggestions for a discussion in a high school English class. Perhaps in the future, Green’s novels could be used in a more academic setting. Reading the comments from readers on John Green’s website, his Twitter account, YouTube channel, and Tumblr account reveals something of a cult following among his readers. His popularity among young adult readers could indeed prove valuable in encouraging teenagers’ interest in literature and fiction.

Through his vlogs and interviews (often with bloggers or small websites dedicated to young adult literature) Green often hints at why he writes specifically for young adults and what inspires his novels. Most importantly, he writes for this core audience because he has said that he simply cares about them the most. In an interview with the website PopMatters, he had some insightful comments about writing for teens. He believes that having a core audience is positive as a writer. In this way, he believes that the only way to reach teens is by writing specifically for them – where as for previous generations, teens were targeted through adult literature.

Perhaps the broad appeal for Green’s novels is that they are nearly devoid of common pop cultural references. The universality of his work lies within the coming of age experience. As he tells PopMatters “‘Huck Finn’ didn’t talk about the Coldplay of its day, for instance, and teens still liked (and like) it.’ The inspiration of his books is also interesting. He writes that he has no “formula” of what he describes as wizard schools or suburban vampire dreamboats. Rather, he uses broad, somewhat unanswerable questions to inspire his work. For example, Looking for Alaska centres around the question of finding meaning in suffering or tragedy. These broad-sweeping intellectual constructs form the skeleton of his writing, as he describes on his own website. The reflection questions described above ultimately help the reader in creating his or her own understanding of the issues he writes about. A common comparison made is between Green’s Colin Singleton character in An Abundance of Katherines and JD Salinger’s Holden Caulfield character. While Salinger probably had little interest in writing for teens, the type of language, ideas, and issues tend to resonate with certain teen readers.

Green has some very interesting insight into the YA industry. He tells PopMatters that the general ignorance and slights towards young adult fiction could be corrected simply by exposing more readers to it, particularly adults. While he admits there is a lot of bad young adult writing, the more ambitious and thoughtful works rival anything found on adult shelves. Ultimately, Green writes about, and celebrates intelligence, nerds, and geeks. Most of Green’s protagonists are thoughtful and bright teens, who are simply different from most of their peers. Although some of his books have been challenged by more conservative-minded parents or educators for his discussions of sex, drug use, underage drinking, and other types of debauchery, he succeeds in cultivating the teen experience on a more profound level.