THE FAULT IN OUR STARS BY JOHN GREEN
Bibliographic Information:
Author: John Green
Title: The Fault in Our Stars
Publisher: Penguin Books
Copyright: 2014
ISBN: 978-0142424179
Summary: Hazel Grace Lancaster isn’t your ordinary sixteen-year-old girl. At thirteen years old she was diagnosed with terminal thyroid cancer which spread into her lungs. Her life consists of going to cancer support meetings, occasionally hanging out with her friend Kaitlyn, and staying at home. The day she meets Augustus Waters, who also had cancer that caused him to lose one of his legs, at the cancer support group her life is forever changed. Through Augustus, Hazel learns that life can still be enjoyed despite her sickness. Her mindset prior to meeting him was that she doesn’t want to get too close to someone because she is going to end up leaving them when the time comes that she passes. But Augustus changes her life as she learns how to be happy every day, live in the moment and take chances. However, when Hazel learns that Augustus’s cancer is back, the shoe is finally on the other foot as she, for the first time in her life is forced to face the hard truth that she may lose the person that she loves before she passes away herself.
Critical Evaluation: The author does an amazing job of covering a topic that is often not discussed: teenagers with life threatening illnesses. The characters are very realistic. Hazel, who has terminal thyroid cancer, lives a very monotonous life: her life consists of going to cancer support meetings, occasionally hanging out with her friend Kaitlyn, and staying at home. This book gives a raw uncut look at what it is like for someone to have a life threatening illness. Over a year and a half ago, I lost someone that was close to me and he died at the age of twenty seven. By reading this book I was able to understand the inner thoughts and feelings of a young person who is ill, and understand why sometimes that person will distance themselves for seemingly “no reason”. There was in fact a reason even though the person who is ill may make sure that you never see it. This gave me an even greater understanding of his behavior towards the end, specifically him distancing himself. The author did an excellent job conveying Hazel’s thoughts on her own mortality, revealing that her putting up a wall not really to protect other people from hurt but to protect herself from being hurt, days when her health was especially bad, how she couldn’t worry about things “normal” teenagers do she had to constantly be mindful of her health”. I believe the author created Augustus to show that just because a person has a life-threatening illness doesn’t mean that is the end of their life; happiness is still possible. One thing that I did find odd was the manner in which Augustus spoke having such an extensive vocabulary as if he was a philosopher. Also, I didn’t care for the correspondence with Peter Van Houten frankly because I barely knew what was being said most of the time. His constant metaphors and talking in riddles was exhausting to try and decipher; it felt like I had to keep looking up words in dictionary.com just to understand a little letter! Otherwise it was a great story.
Reader’s Annotation: Hazel Grace Lancaster isn’t your ordinary sixteen year old girl; at thirteen years old she was diagnosed with terminal thyroid cancer which spread into her lungs. One day in a cancer support meeting she meets Augustus who changes her life forever.
Author Information: John Green is an award winning #1 best-selling author. Some of his books that he is known for are: “Looking for Alaska” “An Abundance of Katherines”, “Paper Towns”, “Will Grayson”, and “The Fault in Our Stars”. Also some of the many awards that he has won include: a Printz Honor, the Printz medal, and the Edgar Award. While he didn’t win, he was nominated twice as a finalist for the LA Times Book prize. In addition to authoring his own books, he is also the coauthor with David Leviathan of “Will Grayson, Will Grayson”. In June 2014, “The Fault in Our Stars was made into a movie adaption”.
TIME magazine selected John as one of the Most Influential People in the world. Working together with his brother Hank, John is one half of Vlogbrothers. Also, John and Hanks videos on YouTube (from their vlogs) inspired a new community of people to develop who identify themselves as nerd fighters who fight for intellectualism. This community of nerd fighters have actually done a lot of great work including: raising millions of dollars to fight poverty. John and his brother Hank also launched a YouTube channel called Crash Course where they teach humanities, and science courses to their viewers.
http://www.johngreenbooks.com/bio
Genre– Fiction
Curriculum Ties– English
Book Talk Ideas– Illness
Reading Level Interest– Grades 9-12
Challenge Issues & Defense Preparation
Challenge Issue: Illness
Selection Policy: http://ccclib.org/policies/CollectionDevelopmentAccess-1999-11-16.pdf
Library Bill of Rights: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/intfreedom/librarybill/lbor.pdf
Book Reviews: https://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Book-Review-The-Fault-in-our-Stars-by-John-Green-5680393.php
Right to Read: http://www2.ncte.org/statement/righttoreadguideline/
Rationale:
Bibliographic information:
Author: John Green
Title: The Fault in Our Stars
Publisher: Penguin Books
Copyright: 2014
ISBN: 978-0142424179
Intended Audience: The intended audience is young adults specifically the upper grades of 9-12. This particular book would be beneficial for an English or social studies class. Primarily the book will be used for individual study in which every member of the class should read the book, and then afterwards there can be a group discussion of what transpired in the book as well as observations and thoughts concerning the book. “The Fault in Our Stars” can be utilized to start discussions concerning having an illness or how to deal with a loved one who is suffering from an illness.
Summary: Hazel Grace Lancaster isn’t your ordinary sixteen year old girl. At thirteen years old she was diagnosed with terminal thyroid cancer which spread into her lungs. Her life consists of going to cancer support meetings, occasionally hanging out with her friend Kaitlyn, and staying at home. The day she meets Augustus Waters, who also had cancer that caused him to lose one of his legs, at the cancer support group her life is forever changed. Through Augustus, Hazel learns that life can still be enjoyed despite her sickness. Her mindset prior to meeting him was that she doesn’t want to get too close to someone because she is going to end up leaving them when the time comes that she passes. But Augustus changes her life as she learns how to be happy every day, live in the moment and take chances. However, when Hazel learns that Augustus’s cancer is back, the shoe is finally on the other foot as she, for the first time in her life is forced to face the hard truth that she may lose the person that she loves before she passes away herself.
Relationship to Program:
The relationship of the book to school objectives would be helping 9th graders develop their literal and inferential understanding skills and comprehension skills. Through reading this book they would learn and develop the following skills: SLE #R. 9.9.2. Identify specific ways an author accomplishes purpose, including organization, narrative and persuasive techniques, style, literary forms or genre, portrayal of themes, tone and intended audiences; R.9.9.4 Recognize how works of a given period reflect author’s background, historical events, and cultural influences; and R.9.9.5 Draw inferences from a sentence or a paragraph (including conclusions, generalizations and predictions) and support them with text evidence. Concerning summary and generalization students will utilize R.9.9.8 Summarize and paraphrase structures in informational and literary texts, including relationships among concepts and details and R. 9.9.13 Identify and discuss a position using concepts gained from reading (e.g. debate, discussion, position paper, etc.).Concerning analysis and evaluation students will utilize R. 9.9.11 Recognize and define various points of view (e.g., omniscient narrator, third person limited). http://www.fayar.net/edvision/language/09_reading_0405.pdf
Impact: I believe this book would have a tremendous positive impact on the beliefs and attitudes of the readers. This book brings a lot of clarity and understanding concerning those who are suffering from a serious illness. It gives a more in-depth look at what a sick person thinks and feels, as well as why them may behave the way that they do. It readers can gain some understanding to what those who are suffering from a serious are going through than they can learn to be empathetic.
Why Included: Students could really benefit from reading this book. It gives an in-depth look at what it is like for a young person to have a serious illness, which may give friends, brothers, sisters, significant others, other relatives or acquaintances a better understanding of life from the sick person’s perspective. This book may change the perspective of those who may feel that reading about a character with an illness is depressing because the book is actually very insightful. Also it has the underlying message that despite your circumstances it is important to live every day to the fullest.
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