Penguin Minis: Looking for Alaska

About Penguin Minis:

“The tiny editions are the size of a cellphone and no thicker than your thumb, with paper as thin as onion skin. They can be read with one hand — the text flows horizontally, and you can flip the pages upward, like swiping a smartphone…. It’s a bold experiment that, if successful, could reshape the publishing landscape and perhaps even change the way people read.” – The New York Times

About LOOKING FOR ALASKA:

An ALA Best Book for Young Adults Top 10
An ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers
A 2005 Booklist Editors’ Choice
A Kirkus Best Book of 2005
A 2005 SLJ Best Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

“What sets this novel apart is the brilliant, insightful, suffering but enduring voice of Miles Halter.” —Chicago Tribune

“Funny, sad, inspiring, and always compelling.” —Bookpage

“Stunning conclusion . . . one worthy of a book this good.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

“The spirit of Holden Caulfield lives on.” —Kliatt

“What sings and soars in this gorgeously told tale is Green’s mastery of language and the sweet, rough edges of Pudge’s voice. Girls will cry and boys will find love, lust, loss and longing in Alaska’s vanilla-and-cigarettes scent.” Kirkus, starred review

“Miles’s narration is alive with sweet, self-deprecating humor, and his obvious struggle to tell the story truthfully adds to his believability. Like Phineas in John Knowles’s A Separate Peace, Green draws Alaska so lovingly, in self-loathing darkness as well as energetic light, that readers mourn her loss along with her friends.” —SLJ, starred review

“…Miles is a witty narrator who manages to be credible as the overlooked kid, but he’s also an articulate spokesperson for the legions of teen searching for life meaning (his taste for famous last words is a believable and entertaining quirk), and the Colonel’s smarts, clannish loyalties, and relentlessly methodological approach to problems make him a true original….There’s a certain recursive fitness here, since this is exactly the kind of book that makes kids like Miles certain that boarding school will bring them their destiny, but perceptive readers may also realize that their own lives await the discovery of meaning even as they vicariously experience Miles’ quest.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review

“Readers will only hope that this is not the last word from this promising new author.” —Publishers Weekly

“John Green has written a powerful novel—one that plunges headlong into the labyrinth of life, love, and the mysteries of being human. This is a book that will touch your life, so don’t read it sitting down. Stand up, and take a step into the Great Perhaps.”
—K.L. Going, author of Fat Kid Rules the World, a Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book