Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event held by the American Library Association (ALA) in an effort to draw attention to the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week draws attention to the harms of censorship by listing all actual and attempted efforts to remove “controversial” books from the shelves of libraries, schools and universities. A perennial target is J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, which chronicles three days in the life of the protagonist and antihero Holden Caulfield, following his exodus of a boarding school he was attending. Originally published for adults, forward-thinking high school English teachers began assigning the book to their students because of its perceptive and sensitive treatment of teenage confusion, angst, sexuality, alienation, and rebellion.

The book immediately aroused strong objections within certain communities across the country when it began to be widely taught to high school students in the early 1960s. The grievances against the book are many and varied, and generally begin with objections about its vulgar language, citing the novel’s heavy use of words like “fuck” and “goddamn”. Other grievances include complaints about its sexual content, anti-religious overtones and undermining of family values. Many also complain that Holden is a bad role model, and that the book encourages rebellion, drinking, smoking, lying, and promiscuity. Damningly, many of the novel’s most vocal critics proudly bragged that they had never even read the book!

Of course all of the controversy couldn’t have been better publicity, and Holden Caulfield remains an enduring icon of teenage rebellion half a century after its publication.

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