The Outsiders

Hinton, S. E. (2006). The outsiders. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 0-14-240733-X. Originally published in 1967.

Why read this book

Read the book that started the modern young-adult literature boom and has sold more copies than any other young-adult novel. Meet Ponyboy Curtis, the likeable 14-year-old who tells his story, and see what life looks like to a group of teenage “greasers” who are discriminated against mostly because they are poor.

Plot summary

Ponyboy, the 14-year-old narrator of The Outsiders, is a greaser, which in his small city on the southern plains means he’s poor and wears his hair longer than the rich, preppy “Socs” who have the upper hand in Ponyboy’s world. Since the death of his parents in a car wreck eight months earlier, Ponyboy lives with his 16-year-old brother Sodapop and his 20-year-old brother Darry. Their social circle is a tight group of other “greasers,” guys who aren’t afraid to shoplift and get into fights with the Socs, but who are basically decent people, especially in the ways that they take care of each other.

One Saturday night Ponytail and his friends Johnny and Two-Bit have a chance encounter with a couple of Soc girls at a drive-in that gets Ponytail thinking that maybe there’s more to some Socs than he had thought. But later that night the Soc girls’ boyfriends jump Johnny and Ponytail, and one of the Socs ends up dead. Johnny and Ponytail flee town on a freight train and hide out in an old church in the countryside. They manage to return home before too long, but before the dust settles from the Soc’s death, Ponyboy has suffered other losses and is on the brink of losing his mind. Ultimately he manages to turn the unfairness he feels as a greaser into productive resistance to the conditions of his life.

Critical evaluation

This has to be the most brilliant novel ever written by a 16-year-old. For all adult readers of young-adult literature, most of which is written by adults, questions of authenticity linger in the back of the mind. “How well did they get this? Are these voices believable? Do young people really talk like this and see the world this way?” With The Outsiders, this question is suspended and transformed. S. E. Hinton wrote the book when she was 16 years old, so it’s got to be authentic. The question becomes, how did a 16-year-old express herself so well?

Hinton’s prose is spirited and straightforward and her characters are engaging and believable. The novelty of her plotting is the only hint I saw of her youth, but it is a hint of freshness and originally rather than of naïveté. Rather than a predictable sequence of scene setting, suspense building, and climax, Hinton structures the plot around a series of events that resolve themselves prematurely. Ponyboy, Johnny and Two-Bit transgress boundaries by hanging out with Cherry and Marcia at the drive-in, but there’s no scene before they part ways. The consequence is delayed to the point that Johnny’s killing of Bob and his escape with Ponyboy become a new dramatic arc rather than a resolution of the tension at the drive-in. The fire in the church and Johnny’s and Ponyboy’s heroism resolve the threat of their being arrested for murder when the novel is only half-way finished, a distinct contrast to the on-going suspense of a novel like Richard Wright’s Native Son. Even the rumble in the park and the death of Johnny and Dally are not the true climax of the novel. The novel climaxes not with events, but with resolution of the theme of fairness. In a self-referential moment that portends post-modernism, the climax of the novel is Ponyboy’s decision to resist the unfairness he sees in life by writing the novel we are reading.

About the author

S. E. Hinton was born in 1950 and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she has continued to live all her life. She began The Outsiders, her remarkable first novel, as a short story when she was 15 years old in response to a friend being beat up on the way home from a movie. She turned the short story into a novel when she was 16, and it was published when she was 17. From the beginning, The Outsiders was well received by both young readers and critics and it “remains the best-selling young-adult novel of all time” (Peck, 2007).

Hinton based the conflict between Socs and greasers on her own high school experiences and, like Ponyboy, she saw writing the novel as a way to address the injustices she saw (biography.jrank.org, n.d.). Hinton continued to write well-received young-adult novels, including That Was Then, This Is Now (1971), Rumble Fish (1975), Tex (1979), and Taming the Star Runner (1988). During the 1980s she collaborated in the creation of films based on several of her novels, including Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983) and Christopher Cain's That Was Then, This Is Now (1985). Tim Hunter directed a film based on Tex (1982).

Genre: The Outsiders a seminal work in Diana Tixier Herald’s “Life is Hard: Outsiders” category of young-adult literature, but it also fits well in her “Contemporary Life: Coming of Age” category.

Curriculum ties

Joanne S. Gillespie provides a thoughtful and thorough array of ideas for working with The Outsiders in high school English classes (Gillespie, 2006). The 2006 edition of The Outsiders includes a list of questions for discussion.

The Outsiders is a thoroughly white book with no references to race or ethnicity (and with the “gallant” Southern gentlemen from Gone with the Wind as a substantial point of reference). For classes with a diversity of students, The Outsiders might still be effective. By its exploration of social conflict from a class perspective, it may provide a neutral window into race- and ethnic-based differences.

Book-talking ideas

· Read from Ponyboy’s engaging early descriptions of his friends.

· Highlight the themes of fairness and “staying gold.”

· Show a clip from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film that conveys the Soc-greaser rivalry; point out all the young actors in the film whose names might be familiar to today’s adolescents.

Reading level/interest age

Most middle school and high school libraries in the San Francisco Unified School District include multiple copies of The Outsiders. At least three middle school libraries have class sets of the novel, which probably indicates that it is read in English/language arts classes.

Challenge issues

The Outsiders includes minimal swearing and no sex, but the violence and underage cigarette smoking may be of concern to some adults.

Responses

· Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

· Point out that the violence is not gratuitous and that central characters in the novel question both the violence and the smoking.

· Inform the challenger that the book continues to be highly regarded young-adult literature, as evidenced in Dale Peck’s 2007 review in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Peck-t.html?scp=3&sq=dale%20peck&st=cse)

· Direct the challenger to a list of awards the book has received (http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1604/Hinton-S-usan-E-loise-1950.html).

Why I chose to read this book

Although I saw the film The Outsiders many years ago, I had never read the novel. Given its seminal role in the development of young-adult literature, it was on my must-read list.

References

biography.jrank.org (n.d.). S(usan) E(loise) Hinton. Retrieved September 20, 2009, from http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1604/Hinton-S-usan-E-loise-1950.html

Gillespie, J. S. (2006, January). Getting inside S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. English Journal 95(3), 44-48. Retrieved September 20, 2009, from http://libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/pqdweb?did=975470931&sid=3&Fmt=4&clientId=17867&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Peck, D. (2007, September 23). The Outsiders: 40 years later. The New York Times. Retrieved September 20, 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Peck-t.html?scp=3&sq=dale%20peck&st=cse

Mexican WhiteBoy

De la Peña, M. (2008). Mexican whiteboy. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 978-0-385-73310-6

Why read this book
Danny Lopez has the fastest pitch in Southern California high school baseball, but he can’t control it. His life’s a little out of control, too, torn between an the mostly white preppy high school he attends in San Diego and the Mexican-American community his dad came from and where he’d rather be.

Plot summary
Danny Lopez is 16 years old, a good student, and the owner of the fastest pitch in Southern California high school baseball. But his life’s so miserable he can hardly talk. His Mexican father left a few years back and his white mother is dating a rich white guy who wants them to move in San Francisco. Danny’s about the only non-white kid in his preppy high school, and he doesn’t have any friends there. He’d love to play baseball, but his fast pitch is so wild the coach told him to forget it. So Danny decides to spend the summer with his dad’s family in National City, a mostly Mexican-American town south of San Diego.

Danny’s cousin Sofia is cool. She likes Danny even though he hardly ever has a word to say. She introduces him to all her friends in the neighborhood, including Uno, an African American guy about Danny’s age. Uno’s a pretty good baseball player, too, and when he watches Danny practice his pitching by himself on the field in the dilapidated neighborhood park, Uno can’t believe what he sees. Danny’s fast and wild, but Uno is a catcher, and he wants to get in on this scene. Gradually he gains Danny’s confidence and they spend the summer practicing, practicing, practicing. As Danny gains control of his pitching, Uno has an idea. How about if they hustle some of the hot young hitters practicing on other baseball fields around the area? “Twenty bucks says my Danny will strike you out before you can get a hit.” Uno’s scheme has the two of them hitting out all over southern California, hoping to stay out of trouble long enough to pick up some cash.

Critical evaluation
Matt de la Peña captures life in National City with sympathy and authenticity. He neither exploits nor minimizes the challenges of life for young people of color in a poor community. As the relationships develop between Danny, his extended family, and his new friends, it’s easy to see how the support Danny finds there makes it possible for him to confront the challenges in his life, which in addition to disciplining his fast ball include the grief caused his father’s disappearance and his confusion about his biracial identity. The setting of the story becomes an important, well-developed character its own right, a key factor in the protagonist’s resolution of the conflicts within himself. In National City, everyone has Danny’s back, unlike his life in his mostly white, upper-class high school. Through Danny’s story de la Peña challenges the “deficit model” that many outsiders, including teachers, see when they look at families in a Mexican neighborhood. De la Peña’s theme goes beyond that of the young individual rising to the occasion. This is a story about the role that a nurturing community plays in that triumph.

About the author
Matt de la Peña was raised in National City, California, a town between downtown San Diego and the U.S.-Mexican border. His father is Mexican American and his mother is white. He attended the University of the Pacific on a basketball scholarship and earned an MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University. His first novel, Ball Don’t Lie (2005), is about a young basketball player. It has been made into a movie that will be released in November 2009. Mexican WhiteBoy is his second novel. A third novel, We Were Here, will be published in October 2009. De la Peña currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches creative writing (Bowllan, 2009; Matt’s bio, n.d.).

On the importance of multicultural young-adult literature, de la Peña has said, “Maybe a biracial kid like me can read one of my books and feel like an insider. Or maybe a white kid can read one and learn about somebody who exists outside of his context. But they have to be there, right? Accessible. Because, man, these kids of color, their lives are beautiful, too” (Bowllan, 2009).

Genre: Latino, Sports

Curriculum ties
Ethnic Studies — The issues Mexican WhiteBoy presents about understanding biracial identity and the importance of community in sustaining and supporting young people are both important topics in Ethnic Studies courses.

Book-talking ideas
• Pick up on the biracial issues, which are especially cool now that we have a biracial president.
• Read some of the exchanges among the younger people in National City, focusing on how decent they are to each other.
• To catch the attention of the sports fans, read or describe one of the encounters between Danny and Uno and the other high school baseball players when Danny and Uno are scamming for dollars.

Reading level/interest age
Sports, identity, confusion — Danny’s issues are things that middle school students can relate to. The lack of sex and violence in the novel, the reading level, and the length also place it in within their reach, despite the fact that the School Library Journal review pegs it for Grade 9 and up (Walton-Hadlock, 2008). The novel’s authenticity is likely to make it a good read for high school juniors and seniors, who are Danny’s age, especially Latinos and mixed-race students.

Challenge issues
Mexican WhiteBoy includes romance but not sex, and it includes a few fistfights but no life-threatening or gratuitous violence. Some characters swear a little, but the most likely feature of the book to draw challenges might be the somewhat poor light cast on the white characters. They are never denigrated for their race, but they are mostly portrayed as less sympathetic to Danny than his Mexican-American and African-American friends and family. The most important white character, Danny’s mother, is off in San Francisco with a rich, white potential husband during most of the story, but in the end she realizes that her highest priority is to return to southern California so she can be there for Danny when he returns to high school in the fall.

Responses
• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”
• Direct the challenger to the list on the author’s Web site of awards and positive reviews the book has received (http://www.mattdelapena.com/MWB.html).

Why I chose to read this book
I found this book while perusing the young-adult section in a Barnes and Noble bookstore. I bought it because of my interest in multicultural literature.

References
Bowllan, A. (2009, August 31). Writers against racism: Matt de la Peña. Bowllan’s Blog. Retrieved September 13, 2009, from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/620000062/post/210048421.html

Matt’s bio. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2009, from http://www.mattdelapena.com/bio.html

Mexican WhiteBoy. (n.d.). Retrieved September 14, 2009, from http://www.mattdelapena.com/MWB.html

Walton-Hadlock, M. (2008, September). De la Peña, Matt. School Library Journal (54)9, 177. Retrieved September 14, 2009, from http://web.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=105&sid=9dd65b35-b00d-4bff-9d7b-a879d3be1871%40sessionmgr110&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=lih&AN=34179113

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (the novel)

Cohn, R. and Levithan, D. (2006). Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-93531-2

Why read this book

Inhabit the world of punk rockers from New Jersey on a Saturday night out on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Plot summary

Nick is a high school senior from a working-class New Jersey family and the bass player in a mostly queer punk band. He’s broken-hearted from his recent break-up with his girlfriend Tris. Norah is also a high school senior from New Jersey. She’s the daughter of a record company executive, and she’s still confused about her recently ended long-term relationship with Tal. After playing his set at a club in lower Manhattan one Saturday night, Nick sees Tris in the crowd and impulsively turns to Norah, whom he has never met, and asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes while he pretends to show Tris that he’s over her. Nick doesn’t realize then that Norah and Tris go way back, and Norah doesn’t realize that Nick is the guy Tris has been abusing for the last few months. They figure out these things and more in the course of the next 12 hours as they hop to another club, fondle each other wildly in a dressing room, separate, reunite, wander around Midtown till dawn, almost have sex in an ice room in the Marriott in Times Square, and eventually figure out the rest of their lives.

Critical evaluation

The narrative is lively and the introspection is intense as authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan take turns writing chapters from Norah’s and Nick’s perspectives. The compressed time frame and the Manhattan setting echo The Catcher in the Rye, but neither of the more modern protagonists captures the angst and vulnerability of Holden Caulfield. Neither Nick nor Norah skirts the brink of sanity like Holden, and their anxiety over their sexual relationships can’t match the damage Holden suffers from his younger brother’s death.

That said, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist skillfully reveals the psychological dynamics of two engaged, reflective teenagers as they try to figure out if they’re a match. Both exes are on the scene to keep the recent failures front and center, and Tris is allowed to evolve from villainess to a character with her own strengths and motivations. The characters’ sophisticated music sensibilities, which are not limited to the punk scene in which the story plays out, provide opportunities for connections that keep the narrative as sharp as a Saturday night out in lower Manhattan demands. The characters’ social skills and analytical capacities would be impressive even among older, more experienced people, but their idealized experience is a model that will move some young readers to imagine bigger lives for themselves than they might have seen before they read the book.

About the authors

Rachel Cohn was born in 1968, grew up in suburban Washington, D.C., and graduated from Barnard College. Among her other young-adult novels are a trilogy featuring a teen-age girl named Cyd Charisse: Gingerbread (2002), Shrimp (2005), and Cupcake (2007) (Gale, 2009, Rachel Cohn).

David Levithan was born in 1972, grew up in New Jersey, and graduated from Brown University. He frequently writes on gay topics, such as his debut young-adult novel, Boy Meets Boy (2003), which is set in a utopian future where sexual preference is not an issue. In 2006 he co-edited a collection of pieces in various formats written by forty GLBTQ youth titled The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, and Other Identities. He also works as an editor for Scholastic Books in New York.

Contemporary Authors Online quotes Levithan on the collaborative writing process of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist: “It was Rachel’s idea to write a back-and-forth novel ... and I’m glad she had it. We started with two names and a few facts, and then wrote the novel by exchanging chapters, without talking about it along the way. We really wrote it for each other, and it’s been really amazing that other people have liked it, too. If our storytelling hadn’t clicked, the book would’ve never happened” (Gale, 2009, David Levithan).

After Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Cohn and Levithan collaborated on a second young-adult novel, Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (2007).

Genre: Romance

Curriculum ties

Although the novel is good entertainment, I don’t see any historical connections or literary qualities that would make it especially useful in high school classrooms.

Book-talking ideas

• How do you figure out whether someone you just met is worth getting to know better? How do you restrain yourself when trying to get to know someone better so you don’t come off as a stalker?

• Tie the book to the 2008 movie based on the book, although the movie is much less edgy, based on the trailer (Sony Pictures, n.d.).

Reading level/interest age

A review in Publisher’s Weekly suggests the book is appropriate for ages 14 and up (Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist, 2006, p. 65) but the sexual content is such that I wouldn’t promote it to readers under 16. Ten of the 18 or so San Francisco public high school libraries own this book.

Challenge issues

Although both Nick and Norah confidently reject alcohol and other drugs, the sexual descriptions in the novel are more graphic than other young-adult literature I have read.

Response

• Remind the challenger of the library policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

Why I chose to read this book

I told a school librarian friend that I have been assigned to the musical genre group for a project in my young adult literature class and she thought this novel might be useful.

References

Gale (2009). David Levithan. Contemporary Authors Online. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/servlet/BioRC

Gale (2009). Rachel Cohn. Contemporary Authors Online. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/servlet/BioRC

Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist (2006, May 1). Publishers’ Weekly 243(18), 65. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://search.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=20674329&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live

Sony Pictures (n.d.). Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/nickandnorah/clips.htm

A Girl Named Disaster

Farmer, N. (1998). A Girl Named Disaster. New York: Puffin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-038635-6

Why read this book

You’d call Nhamo streetwise if she lived in urban America, but since she lives in rural Africa let’s call her rainforestwise. Forced to flee her village or become the third wife to a man nearly three times her age, Nhamo needs all the rainforest wisdom she’s got to survive an epic journey to find her father in a neighboring country.

Plot summary

Nhamo’s status in her Shona village in rural Mozambique is very low, given that her mother had been killed by a leopard when Nhamo was three and even before she was born her father had gotten into trouble with people in a neighboring village and fled back to his own family in Zimbabwe. Nhamo’s days are filled with tasks like planting, weeding, grinding corn into flour, baby-sitting, gathering firewood, and washing clothes, unlike her favored cousin, Masvita, who gets to sit in the shade making pottery. But all this work has taught Nhamo a lot of skills. She knows a lot more than Masvita about the many plants and animals in the rainforest that surrounds their village. Nhamo also has the advantage of a loving grandmother, her mother’s mother, who imparts the knowledge and wisdom she has accumulated in her long life to Nhamo by telling her stories in the evening when the day’s work is done.

Nhamo and Masvita are approaching the time for marriage. Their family pledges Masvita to a promising young man in a nearby village and decides that Nhamo should marry a frail old man who already has several wives and lives in a village that has a claim against Nhamo’s family. Nhamo’s grandmother knows Nhamo deserves better, and she orders Nhamo to flee her village to search for her father in Zimbabwe. After careful, secret preparations, Nhamo sets off in an abandoned boat on an adventure that lasts several months and calls on all her knowledge of rainforest life and Shona spirits to survive.

Critical evaluation

Nancy Farmer tells Nhamo’s story with a third-person narrative, but it is through Nhamo’s eyes that we learn about her world and share her river journey from Mozambique to Zimbabwe. Although I am not qualified to judge the accuracy of the many details of natural life and social life in rural southeast African that enrich the narrative, I can’t doubt the broadening value of these insights for readers whose perspectives have been shaped by urban, industrialized lifestyles. Both the rich resources and the serious challenges that the rainforest offers to humans who live there shape the drama of the narrative. Farmer also explores the challenges to social structures that are negotiating the transition from colonial domination to political independence and from local, agricultural traditions to integration into a globalized, industrialized world. Perhaps the most important theme of Nhamo’s story is the clash between traditional village values and the western, Christian values that foreigners have brought. The clash is revealed subtly through Nhamo’s experiences, and Farmer doesn’t stack the deck against one side or the other. The reader comes to see the strengths of both worlds as Nhamo integrates them into the future she builds for herself. Although Nhamo is an extraordinary character, I found her to be believable (and very likable, of course). As a Horn Book Magazine review notes (Parravano, 1996), Farmer portrays the African setting matter-of-factly rather than exotically. The fairy tale ending rings a bit artificial, but positive and upbeat is not the worst thing for young readers.

About the author

According to the Web site biography.jrank.org, Nancy Farmer was born in 1941 and raised in Yuma, Arizona, where she worked in her family’s hotel during her youth. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in India from 1963 to 1965 and worked as a scientist in Mozambique and Zimbabwe from 1972 to 1988. While living in Zimbabwe she began writing children’s stories and young adult literature, a career she pursued full time since returning to the United States to live in 1991.

In addition to A Girl Named Disaster, which was a Newbery Honor book in 1997, Farmer’s best known young adult titles include:

· The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (1994), a 1995 Newbery Honor book set in a futuristic Zimbabwe

· The House of the Scorpion (2002), a story about cloning set in a fictional land on the border between the United States and Mexico that was a Newbery Honor book, a National Book Award winner, and a Printz Honor book in 2002.

· The Sea of Trolls (2004), set in 8th century England

Genre: Adventure, International

Curriculum ties

Modern world history — Chapter 1 of A Girl Named Disaster gives students a good picture of daily life in an agriculturally based economic system, an important foundation for understanding the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. Overall, Nhamo’s story is a window into the complex interactions between traditional social values and outside influences, especially in the context of 19th and 20th century colonialism.

Cultural geography — In addition to Nhamo’s story itself, the summaries of the history of the peoples of Zimbabwe and Mozambique and the Shona belief system found at the end of the book are good resources for students studying the cultural geography of southeast Africa.

Book-talking ideas

· To reach young people interested in environmental issues, focus on the information about the rainforest and how Nhamo lived in harmony with nature before and during her journey.

· For students who like Cinderella stories, present the book as a Cinderella story in a new context, rural Africa.

· To pique the interest of students who like survival stories, read a passage that describes how Nhamo satisfied her material needs from the natural environment.

Reading level/interest age

Although the format of the book — 300+ pages of relatively small type — might be daunting for 9th and 10th graders, the subject matter may be of more interest to them than to older readers (the protagonist is middle school age). About half the San Francisco public high school libraries own one or more copies of A Girl Named Disaster, but more than half the middle school libraries also own a copy, as do a number of elementary school libraries.

Challenge issues

Although there are harrowing episodes in the novel, there is no sex or violence. The religious issues may evoke challenges, since the story positions traditional animist beliefs and Christian missionary beliefs in opposition, with neither privileged over the other. This may disturb Christian fundamentalists on one hand or African nationalists on the other hand.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

• Inform the challenger that the book received the following awards (according to biography.jrank.org): National Book Award finalist for Children's Literature, 1996; Silver Medal, Commonwealth Club of California, 1996; Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults, American Library Association, 1997; and Newbery Honor Book, 1997.

• Direct the challenger to the positive review in Horn Book Magazine.

Why I chose to read this book

I found this book on the San Francisco Public Library’s list of books for teens in the category “International Experiences: Books about Teens in Other Countries.”

References

biography.jrank.org (n.d.). Nancy Farmer. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1658/Farmer-Nancy-1941.html

Brown, J. M. (2002, July 22). Nancy Farmer: Voices of experience. Publishers Weekly 249(29), 154-155. Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/hww/results/results_single_fulltext.jhtml;hwwilsonid=YT1NZX2KCJEWNQA3DIKSFF4ADUNGIIV0

Parravano, M. V. (1996, November/December). A girl named Disaster. Horn Book Magazine, 72 (6). Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://web.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid=7&sid=2a27f86c-c5af-4b58-b744-4c727675a2ae%40sessionmgr4&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=lih&AN=9704171564#db=lih&AN=9704171564

The Catcher in the Rye

Salinger, J. D. (1991). The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN-10: 0-316-76948-7 (Originally published in 1951.)

Why read this book

Spend 48 hours inside the mind of an astonishing 16-year-old named Holden Caulfield as he runs away from high school, hangs out in New York city, and struggles with the death of his younger brother a few years earlier.

Plot summary

Holden Caulfield is 16 years old, and things are not going well. Sure, he has a privileged life, growing up on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, spending summers in Maine, and attending elite prep schools. And he’s basically a good kid, respectful of his elders, curious about life, and eager to embrace the world around him. But when he looks at that world, he mostly sees phoniness, like people who laugh at all the wrong places in the movie theaters and take their own meaningless chitchat way too seriously. He’s depressed, so depressed that can’t study, and he’s just been kicked out of his fourth prep school. He knows he’s depressed, but all he can think to do about it is to change his whole life scenario, like going off to Colorado to get a job pumping gas and living in a cabin in the wilderness. His peers think he’s too high-strung and they’re too wrapped up in their own worlds to help him figure out what’s going on in his. The adults in his life think they know that it was the death a few years earlier of his younger brother Allie that has thrown Holden for a loop, but they don’t seem to know how to help him overcome the loneliness that Allie’s death has created. In the end, it is his relationship with his 10-year-old sister Phoebe that is Holden’s lifeline to a more hopeful future.

Critical evaluation

Although written before the concept of young adult literature existed, The Catcher in the Rye sets the standard for the entire field. The protagonist’s voice is masterfully unique, engaging, and authentic. Though all our knowledge of Holden is filtered through his own first-person narrative, that rich narrative provides information through which we can infer much about Holden’s situation that he does not understand yet about himself (an excellent example of Roxburgh’s “unreliable narrator” [p. 7]). Holden’s generous and forgiving nature temper his fixation on the phoniness of those around him, such that we see all the characters in the story in shades of grey rather than in blacks and whites. The story is not about blame but about struggle.

The Catcher in the Rye provides a great example of Roxburgh’s maxim that “A writer needs to strip off and discard the layers that obscure the essential plot” (Roxburgh, 2005, p. 7). Although on the surface Holden’s narrative recounts his haphazard wanderings through Manhattan, everything he tells us counts for something in our understanding of the implications of his story for the wider world. Early in the novel Holden’s history teacher tries to reach him by discussing the fragment of an essay that Holden has written on ancient Egypt, a topic that Holden claims holds no interest for him. Later, in Manhattan, when Holden remembers his childhood visits to the Museum of Natural History and then briefly visits the museum again, we see that Egypt means more to him and to his story than he realizes. Ancient Egypt becomes a means by which Salinger says something important about how we construct our understanding of troubled adolescents. Similarly, each detail of Holden’s relationship with his 10-year-old sister Phoebe contributes to our understanding of why that relationship may be Holden’s salvation. Because she is a child, Holden suspends his phoniness filter in his dealings with her, and she becomes the vehicle by which Holden suggests how adults should relate to the young people whom they attempt to guide and support. The audience for this theme is the adult reader, but Holden’s story and his voice are so compelling and authentic that many young readers also benefit from seeing their world articulated so masterfully.

About the author

J. D. Salinger was born in 1919 and grew up in the Bronx in New York City. He published several short stories before serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war The New Yorker began publishing his short stories, and in 1951 he published The Catcher in the Rye, his only novel. Catcher was a best-seller and received critical acclaim, generating publicity that Salinger found uncomfortable. In 1953 he moved from New York to the small town of Cornish, New Hampshire, where he continues to live today. Salinger published short stories through 1965, when his last work appeared. The Catcher in the Rye continues to sell approximately 250,000 copies each year (Wikipedia).

Genre: Crossover

Curriculum ties

The Catcher in the Rye, which provides ample material for rigorous traditional literary analysis (plot, theme, character development, symbolism, etc.), is frequently taught in high school literature classes. Twice Holden uses the term “ironic” correctly, providing a point of entry to that important but difficult concept.

Because some parents and students over the years have objected to the novel (see challenge issues below), it can also be used to teach about issues around censorship and appropriateness of reading material for teenagers. New York English teacher Sandy Scragg (Scragg, n.d.) has published a set of lessons that takes this approach.

Book-talking ideas

Because the narrator’s voice is very engaging, a dramatic reading of almost any passage from the book would send many teens rushing to the checkout counter. I would avoid the more controversial sections (see challenge issues below) for most book-talk audiences, and focus instead on sections where Holden relates to the well-intentioned but ineffective efforts of adults to discuss his problems. Holden’s descriptions of his talks with “old Spencer” (p. 14-15) and “old Antolini” (p. 187-189) might ring familiar to teens looking for a good book to read.

As with curriculum ties, explaining the novel’s important historical and literary position in post-World War II culture in the United States may also be a draw for students, as might be a description of the controversies and court cases around the novel’s appropriateness for high school readers.

Reading level/interest age

New York high school teacher Sandy Scragg (Scragg, n.d.) targets her Catcher-based curriculum for grades 9 through 12, but I would more likely recommend the book for 11th and 12th graders. Younger high school students have probably been exposed via television or movies to alcohol and sexual content comparable to that of the novel, if not more graphic and explicit. And they may have experienced loneliness, depression, and confusion similar enough to Holden’s to relate personally to those aspects of his story. But I think older readers are more likely to understand, discuss in depth, and benefit from the themes in the novel.

Challenge issues

The Catcher in the Rye has evoked challenges for decades, primarily because of profane language, underage drinking, and sexual encounters. These aspects of the story are somewhat less controversial now than they were when the novel first appeared in 1951, but The Catcher in the Rye ranked 13th on the American Library Association’s list of 100 most frequently challenged books between 1990 to 2000 (American Library Association).

Responses

• Determine precisely what aspects of the novel the challenger objects to and whether the challenger has read the entire novel.

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

• Remind the challenger that generations of both younger and older readers have praised the book since it was first published in 1951. It has become an important historical document as well as a part of the literary canon.

Why I chose to read this book

Never having read The Catcher in the Rye during my youth, I decided I shouldn’t go through this young-adult-literature class without addressing that shortcoming. During my high school years in rural Illinois in the 1960s, I never heard of the novel, and when I did hear about it in college everyone else I knew had already read it and considered it a bit passé. I always had the misconception that it was an East Coast suburban experience that wouldn’t relate very directly to my students in urban California. Having read it, I finally understand the universality of its appeal.

References

American Library Association. (n.d.). 100 most frequently challenged books: 1990 to 2000. Retrieved September 6, 2009 from http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedbydecade/1990_2000.cfm

Roxburgh, S. (2005, Winter). The art of the young adult novel. The ALAN Review, 4-10.

Scragg, S. (n.d.). Catching on to Catcher in the Rye. TeachNet. Retrieved September 5, 2009, from http://teachersnetwork.org/teachnetnyc/sscragg/catcher.htm

Wikipedia. (n.d.). J. D. Salinger. Retrieved September 6, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Salinger