Summer Assignment Entry One: Looking For Alaska By John Green

Looking for Alaska, a book by John Green, takes place a little south of Birmingham, Alabama at a school called Culver Creek Preparatory School. Culver Creek is boarding school with very hard classes that constantly challenge its students. All the hard work pays off because it produces some of the smartest kids in the area, compared to other boarding schools that focus more on athletics. However, just because they have good grades, doesn’t meant that they don’t get into trouble. The students always seem to be getting in trouble for drinking or smoking on school grounds. Mr. Starnes, the dean of Culver Creek, aka the Eagle (a name the students call him because he sees and hears everything) created a Jury system. When students were caught doing inappropriate things the dean would tell them a date in which they would appear in front of the Jury (other students) and of course, the Judge, the one and only Mr. Starnes.  The students of the Jury would chose the punishment and Mr. Starnes would approve or change the punishment to whatever he wanted. Most of the time he approved what the Jury came up with. It always seemed to be the same students who kept getting in trouble.

Those students happened to also be the main characters. Miles, aka Pudge, is the new kid on the block, as they say. Chip, aka Colonel, his roommate, gave him that nickname because he is so skinny. Miles is a very shy boy which brings up our first conflict. He has trouble making friends and fitting in. This conflict was quickly resolved when Chip showed him around and took Miles to meet some of his friends. The first person Miles was introduced to was Alaska.  Miles fell for her as soon as he saw her. The first thought that came to his mind when he saw her was, “but I barely heard him because the hottest girl in all of human history was standing before me in cutoff jeans and a peach tank top. And she was talking over the Colonel, talking loud and fast.” Every time he saw her new thoughts would come into his head, he would admire her more and more. He began to slowly fall in love. Sadly a new conflict had arisen, she had a boyfriend.  The last person that Miles was introduced to was a boy named Takumi. They all became best friends as the school year went on, which helped Pudge to become a lot less shy.