2009-07-02T15:03:41-05:00

At age 56, Holden Caulfield, the narrator of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is aging with grace. The American Library Association recently released its list of most <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1007289'>challenged</a> books of <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/14221336'>2006</a> and after several years running, The Catcher in the Rye is finally off that list along with other favorites, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Topping that list this year is And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, which was challenged mostly “by parents and administrators, due to the issues of homosexuality,” the ALA reports. Also on that list are two <a href='http://swivel.com/data_sets/show/1001304'>books</a> by Nobel Prize-winning <a href='http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1007347'>author</a> Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye and Beloved. With or without the famous and infamous Holden Caulfield, the ALA’s list contains books challenged on grounds of sexual content, anti-family content, homosexuality, drugs, offensive language, violence, and insensitivity just to name a few. According to the ALA, Salinger himself received more than his fair share of <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/20419174'>criticism</a> for his novel’s reportedly “anti-white…vulgar…anti-family content.” Regardless of these objections, his classic, coming-of-age novel continues to be read in English-speaking countries, selling an estimated 250,000 copies each year with <a href='http://swivel.com/data_sets/show/1001303'>total sales</a> exceeding 60 million copies making The Catcher in the Rye the 15th largest <a href='http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/17050121'>selling</a> book of all time. In celebration of Salinger’s achievement through the 56 years of his creation’s birth, here is a graph charting the most common reason for an institution’s challenging a book from 1990-2000 and 2000-2006. Happy Birthday, Holden Caulfield!

2431 Reasons for Challenging Books {"format":{"series.default_0.stroke":{"color":"rgb(222, 26, 32)","width":2},"series.default_1.format":{"precedence":1,"format":{"c":true,"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"n"}},"series.default_0.fill":"rgb(222, 26, 32)","series-manager.0.series-order":{},"series.default_1.stroke":{"color":"rgb(135, 0, 76)","width":2},"series.default_1.fill":"rgb(135, 0, 76)","series.default_0.format":{"precedence":1,"format":{"c":true,"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"n"}},"axis.y.format":{"c":true,"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"n"},"axis.x.format":{"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"t"},"series-manager.0.dimension-order":{"reverse":true,"series":"default_0","type":"series","custom":[1,0,3,5,4,8,2,6,9,7]},"axis.x.fontColor":"#000000","series.default_2.format":{"format":{"c":true,"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"n"},"precedence":1},"axis.x.font":"normal normal normal 9px verdana","series.default_3.format":{"format":{"c":true,"ns":true,"p":-1,"t":"n"},"precedence":1}}}

f2/UTgPS5qqIKzqGrKI+EA== Challenges Against Books (2000-2005) http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1007290 Reasons for Challenging Books

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2010-01-08T18:22:09-05:00