A group of Colorado parents are challenging the use of John Green’s award-winning young adult novel Looking for Alaska (Dutton, 2005) in 9th grade classrooms, the author wrote on his Tumblr-based blog yesterday. Green is urging supporters to write to the community in solidarity with the teachers and librarians at the school, Fort Lupton Middle and High School, who he says are "heroically" standing by their choice of the book. “I am extremely grateful to all of the teachers and librarians at Fort Lupton who have come out in support of Looking for Alaska,” Green says, “who understand that I am not out to corrupt teenagers, and who further understand the importance of reading books critically and thoughtfully as a whole, rather than focusing on individual scenes ripped from their context." According to Green, the parents are objecting primarily to one scene in the book for its sexual content, and to the overall consumption of alcohol by some of the characters. The acclaimed and bestselling Looking for Alaska, Green’s first novel, is the winner of the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award for literary merit from the American Library Association’s Young Adult Services Association. It was also named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults Top 10, an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers, a Booklist Editors’ Choice, a Kirkus Best Book, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. Since its publication, however, it has been challenged for its sexual content, explicit language, and characters’ consumption of alcohol, notably in Sumner County, TN, in May of 2012. In fact, it appears on the ALA’s list of the most frequently challenged books for 2012. “This is not the first time Looking for Alaska has been challenged, nor, I suspect, will it be the last,” Green says. He also notes, “It’s important to keep your letter as civil and polite as you can, even if such challenges do transfigurate you into a giant squid of anger.”