Looking For Alaska Michael L. Printz Award

Looking For Alaska is an amazing young adult novel about a boy, Miles, going to the same boarding school his dad went to when he was younger. We see him grow up and meet new friends in this story, while learning more than he ever imagined. Looking For Alaska was chosen out of hundreds of books to be given the Michael L. Printz award. This award is given to books that are thought to be the best for young adults. Looking For Alaska deserved the Michael L. Printz award for the compelling themes it has, the format it is written in, and excellent use of symbols,. One of the main reasons Looking For Alaska deserved the Michael L. Printz award was the many great themes throughout the novel, such as: friendship, coming of age, and death. The main theme, friendship, is heavily conveyed after Miles arrives at Culver Creek, and meets his best friend, the Colonel. The friendship is immediate between the two after the Colonel gives him a nickname Pudge the first day they met. He then gets introduced to Alaska and all his friends through the Colonel. The theme of friendship …show more content…
Starting out with Miles’ obsession of memorising people's last words. He explains why he likes last words in this quote,”A lot of times, people die how they live. And so last words tell me a lot about who people were, and why they became the sort of people biographies get written about. Does that make sense?(Green 128)." Alaska also mentions death often through the book, by talking about the death of her mother that she blames herself for. However, this theme is most strongly expressed when Alaska suddenly dies. Her death also strongly enforces the themes of both friendship and coming of age by forcing Miles to deal with grieving her death with his friends all coming around to support each other in a time of hardship. John Green wrote these themes in because they are perfect for young adults to learn during their coming of age period in their