Happy Birthday to John Green!

Learn more about the groundbreaking YA author

John Green turns 46 this week on August 24 and we are celebrating him! Beyond being a bestselling author, he is a prolific YouTuber, podcaster, and philanthropist. His unique voice has already made a big impact on the YA genre and we're guessing he's nowhere near done! Read on for seven interesting facts about him.

1. Before becoming a writer, he planned to be a priest.

Here's to celebrating light where we find it.
And making light where we don't.

Green graduated from Kenyon college with a double major in English and religious studies and spent six months working as a student chaplain at a children's hospital. He found the experience of working with kids who suffered from life-threatening illness profoundly difficult and it caused him to reconsider his path. He has said that his work there provided insights and material for his writing. That influence can especially be seen in The Fault in Our Stars, his novel about Hazel Grace, a teenage cancer patient who falls in love with a boy she meets at a support group.

2. He was bullied as a kid.

I was such a nerd, I thought nerds were cool.

Green's family moved several times during his childhood, finally settling in Orlando, Florida. He struggled socially and became the target of bullies as a teen in school. His award-winning first novel, Looking for Alaska, was based in part on his transformative experiences after leaving home to attend Indian Springs, a boarding school in Alabama. While there, Green became good friends with Daniel Alarcón, who would also go on to become an author. Green's future wife, Sarah, attended Indian Springs at the same time as Green, but the two didn't really connect until many years later.

3. John and his brother, Hank, lead a community of "Nerdfighters."

The world may be broken, but hope is not crazy.

A Nerdfighter is defined as a "a person who is proud to be nerdy and intelligent, and who fights to decrease WorldSuck." This is the group that has sprung up in response to the Green brothers's vlogbrothers project. They started the project in 2007 as a way to communicate with each other, exchanging vlogs back and forth with each other on their YouTube channel. The brothers gained a large following and have continued and expanded their online activities since then, gaining more than 3.7 million followers. They have used their platform for good, incorporating a large volume of educational content on the channel and establishing the Project for Awesome, a philanthropic effort, raising funds for various nonprofits.

The duo has also worked together on several critically acclaimed podcasts. The Anthropocene Reviewed is a collection of essays Green adapted from his podcast of the same name, which is focused on human activity that has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. One reviewer describes the book as "observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy."

4. He's a fan of collaborations

The only way out is through. And the only good way through is together.

In addition to his projects with his brother, Green has found success teaming up with other writers including for Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances. The book, which he wrote with fellow YA authors Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle, consists of three interconnected short stories set in a small town on Christmas Eve as a massive snowstorm descends.

He also cowrote Will Grayson, Will Grayson with David Levithan. This is the story of two teens who happen to have the same name. When they cross paths with one another on a cold night in Chicago, they suddenly find their lives going in new and unexpected directions.

5. He has obsessive-compulsive disorder.

It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn't the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.

Green has described his experience of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) this way: ". . . it starts out with one little thought and then slowly that becomes the only thought that you're able to have . . ." This is a theme he explores in his 2017 novel Turtles All The Way Down. The story is about sixteen-year-old Aza Holmes, a high school student with OCD, who is simultaneously grieving the loss of her own father and trying to track down a fugitive billionaire who also happens to be a neighbor's father. A film adaptation is in development.

6. Several of his other books have already found success on the screen.

I am very glad I lived through some hard days, so that I could have this one.

Previous adaptations of Green's stories have been well received. The Fault in Our Stars starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort opened at number one at the box office in 2014. Be sure to have your kleenexes ready for this tearjerker.

Paper Towns, based on Green's 2008 novel, came out the following year. The movie stars Nat Wolff as a nerdy teenager searching for his missing friend (and crush) played by Cara Delevigne.

Looking for Alaska, an eight-part limited series, premiered on Hulu in 2019. It received acclaim from critics, as well as from fans of the book.

7. His own choice of reading material is quite eclectic.

Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.

Not surprisingly, Green is a voracious reader and enjoys sharing recommendations on books he loves. In a 2021 vlogbrothers post, he offered the diverse set of selections listed below, along with some of his comments about them.

• The Bookseller's Tale by Anne Swinfen—"If you want to spend some peaceful hours enjoying a great mystery series."
• Tuff by Paul Beatty—"If you want to belly laugh and be truly astonished by linguistic acrobatics."
• Miracle's Boys by Jacqueline Woodson—"I love a book about brotherhood and this one might be my favorite."
• The Black Death by Rosemary Horrox—"Okay onto infectious disease 'cause that's where my brain always goes."
• Epidemics and Society by Frank Snowden—"It helped me understand that infectious disease has always been one of the most important historical forces."
• The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein—"It helped me understand the big bang and dark energy and lots of other stuff."
• Phosphorescence by Julia Baird—"Another book that acknowledges that we are not just observers of reality, but participants in it."
• All Together Now by Erik Samuelson—I mean it is the greatest underdog story of all time, told by one of the people who made it happen.
• Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver—"I dog-eared almost every page of this book."
• Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar—"He writes the kind of poems that get richer and more interesting the more time you spend with them."
• How to Cook and Eat in Chinese by Buwei Yang Chao—"It is hugely historically important. Somebody put it back in print!"

What a dynamic and interesting guy! If you weren't already a John Green fan, hopefully this post has intrigued you. If you are, we hope you learned a bit more about him today. Let us know if you have any interesting tidbits to add!

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Read more by Ashly Moore Sheldon