GCL Hosts Holdenathon in Honor of Banned Books Week

(Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

The Garland County Library will host a marathon reading of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” on Saturday, September 24^th, starting at 10 a.m. The event will celebrate both the 60^th anniversary of the publication of Salinger’s classic novel and Banned Books Week, the American Library Association’s annual event which highlights the threats to the freedom to read posed by the hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries every year.

“We wanted to do something different this year for Banned Books Week and reading ‘Catcher in the Rye’ aloud seemed like a fun way to celebrate the freedom to read,” Greg Wallace, organizer of the event, said. “Due to some curse words and themes some people may object to, ‘Catcher in the Rye’ is one of the most frequently challenged classics in the United States.”

When “The Catcher in the Rye” was published in July, 1951, Salinger’s tale of runaway preppy Holden Caulfield’s lost weekend in New York City not only became an immediate best seller and classic of teenaged alienation, but also a favorite target of censors, according to data compiled by the American Library Association and available at its website (www.ala.org).

In 1960, a teacher in Tulsa, OK was fired for assigning “The Catcher in the Rye” to an eleventh grade English class. The teacher appealed and was reinstated by the school board, but the book was removed from use in the school.

The book has been challenged dozens of times since, usually on grounds of containing obscenity and sexual references. As recently as 2009, “Catcher” was challenged in the Big Sky High School in Missoula, MT.

“If you’ve never read it, this is a great chance to find out what all the fuss is about,” Wallace said. “If you’ve read it before, then you know it’s a story that bears re-reading, especially for Salinger’s inventive use of the teenaged voice of Holden Caulfield, which is always amusing and sometimes heartbreaking.”

“We plan to read the entire book cover to cover,” Wallace continued, “even if we have to stay ‘til midnight to do it. We’re hoping that we’ll have plenty of volunteers to read. As an incentive, we’ve got a hunting cap like the one Holden wears in the book for the readers to wear while they read.

“Also, we’re giving away door prizes and we’ll serve plenty of snacks, so I hope lots of people will celebrate the freedom to read by joining us, whether they drop in for a chapter or two or stay from ‘if you really want to hear about it’ through ‘don’t ever tell anybody anything—if you do, you start missing everybody,’” Wallace said, referring to the iconic opening and closing lines of “Catcher.”

For more information about Banned Books Week or the “Catcher” marathon, call the library at 623-4161 or 922-4483.