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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 7/16/25: If You Really Want to Hear About It [1]
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Date: 2025-07-16
For those of us of a certain vintage, adolescence was marked by meeting Holden Caulfield for the first time, who appeared in novel form on this day in 1951. I was in junior high and it was different from anything I had read previously.
Naturally, conservatives freaked out over it.
In 1960, a teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was fired for assigning the novel in class. She was later reinstated.[38] Between 1961 and 1982, The Catcher in the Rye was the most censored book in high schools and libraries in the United States.[39] The book was briefly banned in the Issaquah, Washington, high schools in 1978 when three members of the School Board alleged the book was part of an "overall communist plot".[40] This ban did not last long, and the offending board members were immediately recalled and removed in a special election.[41] In 1981, it was both the most censored book and the second most taught book in public schools in the United States.[42] According to the American Library Association, The Catcher in the Rye was the 10th most frequently challenged book from 1990 to 1999.[10] It was one of the ten most challenged books of 2005,[43] and although it had been off the list for three years, it reappeared in the list of most challenged books of 2009.[44] The challenges generally begin with Holden's frequent use of vulgar language;[45][46] other reasons include sexual references,[47] blasphemy, undermining of family values[46] and moral codes,[48] encouragement of rebellion,[49] and promotion of drinking, smoking, lying, promiscuity, and sexual abuse.[48] The book was written for an adult audience, which often forms the foundation of many challengers' arguments against it.[50] Often the challengers have been unfamiliar with the plot itself.[39] Shelley Keller-Gage, a high school teacher who faced objections after assigning the novel in her class, noted that "the challengers are being just like Holden... They are trying to be catchers in the rye."[46] Censorship of the book often causes a Streisand effect, as such incidents cause many to put themselves on the waiting list to borrow the novel, where there was no waiting list before.[51][52]
Sorry, Holden. We’re still surrounded by phonies. x x YouTube Video
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