John Green: from bad boy to Printz Award winner By KAREN MACPHERSON Scripps Howard News Service Six years ago John Green had a job re-typing the acceptance speech of Walter Dean Myers, who had just won the first-ever Michael Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature for his novel "Monster." This year Green wrote his own speech after winning the Printz Award for his first novel, "Looking For Alaska" (Dutton. $15.99). Praised by critics as a remarkable debut, the book focuses on a teen's efforts to come to grips with a life-changing tragedy. "I grew up with this award," Green said in a recent telephone interview from his New York City home. Now Green, 29, has just published his second young adult novel, "An Abundance of Katherines" (Dutton, $16.99). Unlike "Looking For Alaska," Green's latest book is a comic novel about a newly minted high school graduate and prodigy, Colin Singleton, who sets off on a summer road trip with his best friend Hassan. Along the way, Colin, who is reeling from his 19th break-up - all with girls named Katherine - finally finds true love. Totally different in tone from his first book, "An Abundance of Katherines" is a bright, breezy but intelligent book that will challenge readers even as it makes them laugh. Readers also will be intrigued with Colin 's obsession with ana- 'Some people say, "You wrote a dirty, dirty book. "But there are very old-fashioned values and even a lot of religion in it. There are some adults who think that the only kind of ethics that matter are sexual ethics. So they miss everything else that is going on in the book. ' JOHN GREEN Author of prize-winning 'Looking for Alaska' gramming, as well as his efforts to create a mathematical formula to explain the ups and downs of love. "I wanted this book to be funny, but hopefully it has some depth," Green said. Looking back, it seems natural that Green would become a writer for young adults. He's always loved to write, and he says his mother used to joke that he was so imaginative - "such a great liar" - that he would either end up as a writer or in jail. Raised in Orlando, Fla., Green had a "pretty bleak" experience in middle school. "I was always smart, a bit nerdy, and I was massively unpopular in middle school," he remembers. Things didn't improve much during his freshman year in high school, so Green asked his parents to send him to the boarding school outside Birmingham, Ala., that a number of his relatives had attended. At the school, Green was a self-described "inveterate bad boy." But he also was inspired by the school's high-powered academics, and formed close relationships with teachers that continued after his graduation. Several years later, after graduating from Kenyon College in Ohio, Green planned to go to divinity school. But an interim stint as a chaplain at a children's hospital convinced Green that he wasn't cut out for divinity school. Yet the job did help Green decide that he should work with teenagers. Green was trying to figure out how to combine that decision with his desire to be a writer when he took a temporary job at Booklist, the American Library Association's book review magazine. It was there that Green discovered contemporary young adult literature and realized that's the kind of book he wanted to write. So Green began working on "Looking For Alaska," much of which was based on his own high school experience. The book's main character, Miles Halter, a.k.a. Pudge, transfers to a boarding school, where he makes intense friendships and experiences a tragedy that forces him to decide what's important in his life. Some adults have objected to the overt sexuality in the book, as well as the fact that Pudge and his friends smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and feel comfortable questioning authority. Green, however, contends these adults miss the book's moral core and adds, "My responsibility is to teens, not to adults. "Some people say, 'You wrote a dirty, dirty book.' But there are very old-fashioned values and even a lot of religion in it," Green said. "There are some adults who think that the only kind of ethics that matter are sexual ethics. So they miss everything else that is going on in the book." Green was walking down Sixth Avenue in New York with his wife and parents earlier this year when he got a call on his cell phone and heard that he had won the Printz. Green was thrilled as well as surprised. He had correctly predicted the four previous winners of the Printz, and had predicted that another book - not his - would win the award this year. Green now is at work on his third book, and says he plans a long career as a young adult novelist. "It's what I want to do - it's what I have a passion for. It's great to work with teens, who are creating value systems for their lives ... It's very important work." Karen MacPherson, the children's teen librarian at the Takoma Park (Md.) Library, writes this column. She can be reached at karen.macpherson gmail.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service. LAKE MICHIGAN COLLEGE Mendel Cente maiksiacf -the Ballet Folklorico Quetzalli
