Scholarships

by Kari Berg

   As an English major with a concentration in literature and a minor in childhood studies, I am ending my undergraduate career from Christopher Newport University with a deep love for working with both literature and children. Although I have always known that I wanted to work with children and am entering into the graduate teaching program, I have recently discovered that my future career goals may not be limited to classroom teaching. After my younger sister, Kelsey, was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia in November, I now know working with pediatric oncology patients will be a part of my future.
   While I remain interested in classroom teaching, I am also interested in working with children who are undergoing blood and bone marrow transplants. As I spent my winter break in Duke University Hospital’s isolated unit for these children, I was overcome with admiration for the patients. While the fight against any type of cancer at any age is inspiring, I was especially moved by the situation of these patients. Ranging from newborns to young adults, the patients undergoing blood and bone marrow transplants face the difficulties of the process in extreme isolation. For their protection, the children live on a hall restricted from any outside visitors aside from immediate families, doctors, and social workers. What is left of the patients’ immune systems is destroyed completely through chemotherapy and radiation in order to prepare their bodies for new blood and marrow. During the process, the children’s lives are in a fragile balance, as the smallest infection, cold or complication could end their lives.
   How do these children get through this process? Duke Hospital’s unit for these children aids in a multitude of ways. Although they have to pull their “poles” with all their dozens of medicines that they are connected to around the clock, the children are encouraged to come together in the community room for stimulating and fun activities. Duke Hospital offers music time, art time, bingo, video games, and movies that give the patients a chance to be kids, even as they face the most difficult challenge of their lives. The Family Support Program and various kinds of volunteers dedicate their lives to helping the patients and their families not only through their inpatient time on the transplant hall, but also in their months of outpatient time, where they remain very isolated due to the children’s conditions.
   Although I found myself in awe of the programs designed to help these patients, my background from Christopher Newport University gave me insight to other ways to help these children.  In the specific case of Duke Hospital, multiple resources were available for the patients, but there were no books or story telling activities. Possibly the lack of books could be because, unlike the other toys that could be easily washed, there is no way to sanitize books after each use. While nothing should be offered that puts the children’s health at stake, there are other ways to share books with the patients. Just like there is an hour for music or art for the children to come out for, there could be a story time where they come together to listen to someone read a book, or there could be a branch of volunteers that read individually to children.
   Through my experience in English 314W, children’s literature, and English 315, adolescent literature, I have learned how powerful books can be to these age groups. Books offer new perspectives, life lessons, and adventures into other worlds, and could be very helpful to children who are undergoing blood and bone marrow transplants. During her months of isolation because of her bone marrow transplant, my sister tried to escape into the magical world of the Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling, but did not have the energy or strength to read it herself. While every child may not enjoy being read to, I would like to someday volunteer and offer this service to them. Whether children would like to hear stories for their own enjoyment, such as Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak, or stories with protagonists who are going through a similar experience, such as Stevie's New Blood, by Kathryn Ulberg Lilleby, I feel that books can help these pediatric patients. Likewise, I feel there are books that would offer a fun escape for adolescents, such as the Harry Potter series, as well as serious problem novels that these young adults could relate to, such as Deadline, by Chris Crutcher. While I feel that my background in classes such as Childhood Development and Life Span Development could help me interact with children and young adults, I feel that there are many books that could further my understanding of how to specifically relate to pediatric oncology patients, such as, Social Work in Oncology: Supporting Survivors, Families and Caregivers, by Marie Lauria, Naomi Stearns, and Joan Hermann.
   With the training I will receive in my fifth year at Christopher Newport University in the teaching program, there are many possibilities for my future. I could pursue my dreams as a classroom teacher, with supplementary sources such as Spaces & Places: Designing Classrooms for Literacy, by Debbie Diller. Although it will be hard work, I will be prepared to teach and can rely on an abundant supply of books for first year teachers. I could also work one on one, teaching children who are inpatients or outpatients of blood and bone marrow transplants. Due to their fragile conditions, these children and young adults are pulled out of school and unable to return for months as they recover their immune systems. I am interested in using my background and training to pursue a career tutoring these children.
Although I am unsure what my future holds, whether it includes volunteer social work, classroom teaching or tutoring pediatric oncology patients, I know it will center around teaching, and empowering children through literature. I am sure that building my collection of children and young adult books, and informational books about teaching and social work will aid in the fulfillment of my career goals.

Children and Young Adult books about Cancer:
Dear Bruno
By Alice Trillin, illustrated by Edward Koren.
$19.77

My ABC Book of Cancer
By Shannin Chamberlain
$6.95

Kathy’s Hats: A Story of Hope

By Trudy B. Krishner and Nadine Bernard Westcott
$11.97

Chemo Girl: Saving the World One Treatment at a Time
By Christina Richmond
$25.81

Henry and the White Wolf
By Tim and Tyler Karu
Henry
$6.30

Why, Charlie Brown, Why? A Story About What Happens When a Friend is Very Ill
By Charles Schultz
$48.28

Beauty Pearls for Chemo Girls
By Marybeth Maida, Debbie Kiederer, Foreword by Betsey Johnson
$9.42

Stevie's New Blood
By Kathryn Ulberg Lilleby, Chad Chronick (Illustrator)
$10.89

My Blood Brother: A Story about Childhood Leukemia
By Elizabeth Murphy-Melas, Mary Kate Wright (Illustrator)
$14.95

The Fall of Freddie the Leaf
By Leo Buscaglia
$14.95

The Jester Has Lost His Jingle
By David Saltzman
$20.00

Deadline
By Chris Crutcher
$8.99

Books for my Future Career Goals in Social Work and Teaching:
Social Work in Oncology: Supporting Survivors, Families and Caregivers
By Marie M. Lauria, Naomi M. Stearns, Joan F. Hermann
$24.70

Cancer in Adolescents and Young Adults
By Archie W. Bleyer, Ronald Duncan Barr, Karen H. Albritton
$179.00

Understanding Pupil Behaviour: Classroom management techniques for Teachers
By Ramon Lewis, Andrew Watson
$33.95

Spaces & Places: Designing Classrooms for Literacy
By Debbie Diller
$28.50

Assertive Discipline: Positive Behavior Management for Today's Classroom / Edition 4
By Lee Canter
$24.95

Starting Strong: Surviving and Thriving as a New Teacher / Edition 2
By Kristen J. Nelson, Kimberly Bailey, Kim Bailey
$35.95

Transforming Learning with New Technologies
By Robert W. Maloy, Sharon A. Edwards, Ruth Ellen Verock-O'Loughlin, Beverly P. Woolf
$97.80


Children and Adolescent Literature
Where the Wild Things Are
By Maurice Sendak
$17.95

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
By: Mo Williams
$14.99

In the Night Kitchen
By: Maurice Sendak
$17.95

Tops and Bottoms
By: Janet Stevens
$17.00

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears: A West African Tale
By: Verna Aardema
Price: $7.99

Fables
By: Arnold Lobel
Price: $6.99

Stone Soup
By: Marcia Brown
Price: $17.99

Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China
By: Ed Young
Price: $6.99

Number the Stars
By: Lois Lowry
Price: $6.99

The Tail of Despereaux
By:Kate DiCamillo
Price: $7.99

Holes
By: Louis Sachar
Price: $6.99

Walk Two Moons
By: Sharon Creech
Price: $6.99

Goodnight Moon
By: Margaret Wise Brown
Price: $8.99

A Light in the Attic
By: Shel Silverstein
Price: $18.99

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
By: Michael Rosen
Price: $7.99

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
By: Laura Joffe Numeroff
Price: $17. 89

The Rainbow Fish
By: Marcus Pfister Herbert
Price: $18.95

Junie B. Jones Collection 1-8
By: Barbara Park
Price: $21.60

Dog Breath! : The Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis
By: Dav Pilkey
Price $14.52

Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
By: Jon Scieszka
Price: $12.95

Goldilicious
By: Victoria Kann
Price: $17.99

Amazing Grace
By: Mary Hoffman
Price $16.99

Love You Forever
By: Robert Munsch, Sheila McGraw
Price: $5.35

The Giving Tree
By Shel Silverstein
$16.99

Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales
By Beatrix Potter
$40.00

Harry Potter Paperback Boxed Set (Books 1-7)
by J. K. Rowling
$86.97

by Kate Doyle
The Treatment of Children in The Catcher in the Rye
    Holden Caulfield may hold the titles “the most beloved fictional character of American literature” and “most detested fictional character of American literature” simultaneously.  It seems that for every school system in which The Catcher in the Rye is taught, there is another school system from which it is banned.  Objectionable language and subject matter abound in this bildungsroman, but for all of the “badness” in the novel, author J.D. Salinger offers “goodness,” too.  The morality of the protagonist can especially be observed in regards to his treatment of children; the book’s title alone speaks volumes, as it is derived from Holden’s desire to preserve the innocence of youth.  It is the paradox of the novel that in order to defend innocence, Holden himself must depart from innocence and mature into an adult so that he may provide an example as to how to be an adult without being a “phony” or a “prostitute.”  As many of the first time readers of The Catcher in the Rye are adolescents, it is important to consider the ways in which Catcher treats this group and the group from which they are beginning to depart.  In The Catcher in the Rye, children are represented as morally superior to adults, innocent and nearly perfect beings; with Holden serving as a model of how children should and should not be treated, the book establishes itself as moral in nature through its exalting treatment of youth, and thereby worthy of scholastic acceptance and appreciation. 
    Because most of Holden’s narration centers on what he finds to be immoral, it is best to define what is moral through the use of binary opposition; in this essay, what is moral will be defined primarily through examples of what the speaker considers to be immoral.  One aspect of immorality Holden criticizes is the ravenous pursuit of money and material wealth.  Two pages into the book, the protagonist laments his brother’s choice to abandon his short story writing in order to pursue a more lucrative career as a scriptwriter in Hollywood, and calls his brother a “prostitute” (2).  This is commentary on the immorality of compromising one’s dreams for the sake of wealth.  Shortly thereafter, Holden goes on a tangent in which he describes a visit from the Pencey alumnus after which his dormitory building is named, Ossenburger.  Ossenburger had made a fortune in the undertaking business, and had donated a substantial amount to the school.  As part of his visit, Ossenburger delivers a speech in the chapel.  Holden critiques the speech, saying, “He said he talked to Jesus all the time.  Even when he was driving his car.  That killed me.  I can see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs” (17).  Most of what adults do, Holden figures, is based upon the act’s likeliness of accruing money.  He goes so far as to dismiss prep school education as a means of parents to ensure that their sons can “learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddamn Cadillac some day…”(131).  Here, Holden asserts that an education should be pursued primarily, if not solely, for knowledge gain, not wealth gain.  Salinger parallels the greed of adults to the giving nature of children, using Holden’s sister, Phoebe, as the vehicle for said parallel.  When Holden visits her and explains his dwindling funds, Phoebe immediately offers him her eight dollars and sixty-five cents savings.  Holden declines her offer, but worried that her brother will not have a means of surviving the next day or so, Phoebe forces her cash into his hand.  The moral superiority of children in regards to wealth is established in this scene, and the voracious pursuit of money is marked as immoral repeatedly throughout the text. 
    Additionally, Holden appreciates the innocence of children in relation to sexuality, and is repulsed by how much of a role uncommitted and sometimes obscene sexual encounters seem to play in the lives of adults; even his peers seem to have crossed the divide completely between childhood and adulthood when it comes to sexual affairs.  On one described occasion, Holden goes one a double date with his roommate, Stradlater, and is alarmed by his peer’s aggressive sexual behavior.  The two couples are in a car, Holden and his date sitting up front, and Stradlater and his date in the back.  He hears “no—please” from the backseat several times, but then goes on to say that, “old Stradlater kept snowing her in this Abraham Lincoln, sincere voice, and finally there’d be this terrific silence”(49).  Holden says that one of the rules he has set for himself when it comes to girls is to always stop at their request, and in this sense, he has maintained some hint of innocence.  The protagonist’s dismay with the sexuality of adults is again addressed upon his entrance into his hotel room.  He looks out his window, across a courtyard, and into the windows of guests at a neighboring hotel.  The blinds are not drawn in either room.  In one, he sees a paunchy middle-aged man dressed in women’s lingerie, and in the second, there is a couple sitting in their undergarments, spitting an unknown substance back and forth to each other, much of which is getting all over their faces.  He finds it amusing on the surface, but after some reflection, decides it is revolting, saying, “I think if you don’t really like a girl, you shouldn’t horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you’re supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it” (62).  By “horsing around,” Holden means engaging in anything physical with a girl; hence, he is discouraging physical intimacy between people who are not connected emotionally.  Later, his encounter with the young prostitute is cut short by his convictions, and he shares with the reader thoughts that suggest his belief that sex should only take place between two people who are in love.  Innocent children are untainted by sexual desires, and this reinforces their superior moral standing. 
    The third and most mentioned aspect of adult life Holden finds immoral is what he calls “phoniness.”  When Holden begins to unravel the tale of his expulsions from multiple prep schools, he starts with an explanation of his distaste for the headmaster of Elkton Hills, Mr. Haas.  He says of Haas,

On Sundays, [he] went around shaking hands with everybody’s parents when they drove up to school.  He’d be charming as hell and all.  Except if some boy had funny-looking parents…then old Haas would just shake hands with them and give them a phony smile and then he’d go talk, for maybe a half an hour, with somebody else’s parents (14).

    To Holden, treating someone differently based upon their appearances is shameful, and is a seemingly common practice of the especially phony.  But perhaps even more bothersome to Holden is two-facedness, which he observes in all adults to a degree.  Even Mr. Antolini, the teacher who was the only person compassionate enough to approach the body of James Castle post-suicide, revoked his good standing with Holden when he made a “flitty pass” at the protagonist behind closed doors.  More striking, though, was Holden’s observation of a woman and her child during a matinee.  The movie playing was a sappy one, and the woman was crying throughout it.  Because of the tears, one might suspect the woman to be sensitive and kindhearted; however, her child was whimpering because he had to go to the bathroom, and instead of escorting him, she told him to sit still and behave.  Disheartened by adult nature once again, Holden remarks, “You take somebody that cries their goddamn eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they’re mean bastards at heart” (140).  And he proclaims, “old Jesus probably would’ve puked” (137) had he witnessed the commercialization of his celebrated birthday at Radio City Music Hall, in which crucifixes are carried across the stage, alongside glitter-adorned Christmas trees.  Adults are portrayed as the willing participants of hypocrisy; they are the ones responsible for atrocities like the Radio City Christmas Special; they are the ones who broadcast a sensitive image of themselves, yet refuse to alleviate the discomfort of their children when they think no one is looking; they are the ones who concern themselves with associating with only attractive people. 
    Children, on the other hand, seem to give no notice as to how attractive and well dressed their fellows may be, so long as they can roller skate.  They are not concerned with projecting a certain image of themselves.  Children, essentially, are the least phony beings, and Holden makes this notion concrete with a passage that seems inconsequential at first, but a closer reading reveals its meaning.  While Holden is waiting for Phoebe at the museum, two young boys approach him and ask to be pointed towards the mummy exhibit.  Holden guides them to it, and then points out to one of the children that his fly is down.  Instead of retreating to a private area to fix this, the boy pulls his fly up right then and there.  Holden secretly admires the openness of the boy, and this event is testimony to the greater moral standing of children as compared to adults. 
    The sensitive Holden recognizes the moral superiority of children, and attributes their heightened moral standing to their innocent nature.  He thinks that if there were a way to preserve the innocence of children into their adulthood, then the immorality of “matured” society could be righted.   Perhaps the most readily available evidence that indicates Salinger’s fondness of children can be extracted from the work’s title.  Around the midpoint of the book, Holden encounters a child who is walking in the street, instead of on the sidewalk, singing a tune that Holden hears as, “If a body catch a body coming through the rye.”  After hearing the carefree child sing, Holden says, “It made me feel better.  It made me feel not so depressed anymore” (15).  Later on in the book, when Phoebe asks her brother what he would like to be when he grows up, Holden explains his interpretation of the song.  He envisions a field of rye atop a cliff in which children play, and he stands guard by the edge, catching the children before they fall off.  “I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be,” (173) Holden tells his sister.  If the cliff symbolizes adulthood (however unknowingly) to Holden, it follows that he would like nothing more than to keep children as children, to preserve their innocence, so that they may not have to suffer the “phoniness” of adulthood.  Phoebe informs him that he has misheard the lyrics.  “If a body meet a body coming through the rye” reads the poem “Coming Thro’ the Rye” by Robert Burns, which, upon closer inspection, is actually a proposal for an uncommitted romp of the sexual nature in a field.  Even so, Holden remains unshaken in his desire to catch children from the fall, which perhaps indicates his wish to prevent children from viewing sex in a casual matter. 
    This specific desire is reiterated when Holden sees “f*** you” written on a wall inside his sister’s elementary school, and takes it upon himself to rub it off, so as to prevent the schoolchildren from learning its meaning from some “dirty kid who would tell them—all cockeyed, naturally” (201).   Essentially, Salinger could have named his work “The Imaginary Protector of Children.”  At one point in the book, however, Salinger’s messages become slightly mixed; by the time Holden decides to go out west, the narrator’s love for his sister has been described in much detail.  Critic Ernest Jones says of Phoebe, “After every other human being has failed him, Caulfield still has his loving ten-year-old sister to love; she embodies the innocence we all hope we have preserved and the wisdom we hope we have acquired” (25).  It may by puzzling to the reader upon initial encounter as to why, then, Holden becomes livid when Phoebe asks to accompany him out west.  But when one considers why Holden had decided to move westerly (to grow up), his anger with Phoebe becomes somewhat justified.  He cannot fathom why his sister would like to abandon childhood, and ultimately changes his plans (however unlikely they were to work out in the first place) to ensure that Phoebe will not follow him and thereby depart from the purity of childhood.  Here, too, Holden has served his purpose as “the catcher in the rye.”
    As the unofficial “protector of the children,” it is also Holden’s job to serve as a model of how children should be treated.  Salinger’s work seems to reverse the notion that “children should be seen and not heard,” insistent that not only should children be seen and heard, but also admired.  The author’s admiration of children is continually reinforced, as critic Harrison Smith notes: “The book is full of the voices and delightful antics of children.  Especially [Holden] adored his stalwart and understanding little sister, who in the end undoubtedly saved him from suicide.  And there were the memories of his dead brother, whom he had loved” (28).   In fact, it seems as though Phoebe and the other children mentioned throughout the book are the only characters who do not get the title of “phony.”  He shares with the reader stories of his brother Allie, who “was the most intelligent member in the family, but he was also the nicest, in a lot of ways,” and “wish[es] you could have met him” (38).   In regards to his sister, Holden uses the words “pretty” and “smart” with much frequency, and at several points throughout the narrative, he expresses to the reader a desire that they might be able to see her, too.   Descriptions of Phoebe are often gateways to descriptions of children as a whole, such as in the following passage, in which Holden goes to visit his sister and observes her sleeping:

She was laying there asleep, with her face sort of on the side of the pillow.  She had her mouth way open.  It’s funny.  You take adults, and they look lousy when they’re asleep and they have their mouths way open, but kids don’t.  Kids look all right.  They can even have spit all over the pillow and they still look all right (159).  

Children are exalted for their purity even in their unconscious states; their innocence emanates from them not only in their waking actions, but also in their inaction, through their physicality alone.  Between scenes in which Holden and Phoebe interact, the protagonist encounters several other children, and the theme of youthful purity is developed further.  Several times Holden takes it upon himself to help children, one instance being in the park while watching a young girl struggle to put on her roller skate.  He goes on to say that, “She was a very nice, polite little kid.  God, I love it when a kid’s nice and polite when you tighten their skate for them or something.  Most kids are.  They really are” (119).  Here, Salinger is inadvertently expressing his belief that children hold themselves to higher standards of politeness than do adults, who, up until this point, have all been portrayed as fairly unpleasant and rude characters.  Holden suggests that it is because of the moral superiority of children that they deserve exalting treatment, and to be seen and heard.
    But in serving as a model of how children should be treated, Holden must also demonstrate how they should not be treated—neither seen nor heard.  It is allegedly his parents’ worry for him that causes Holden to be sent away to numerous prep schools, but ultimately, it is the isolation from his family, the people who are meant to truly understand him, that causes Holden’s mental instability.  Scholar Gerald Rosen goes so far as to argue for deeper meaning in the scene in which Holden pulls his cap over his eyes and says, “Mother darling, everything’s getting so dark in here.  Mother darling, give me your hand.  Why won’t you give me your hand?” (21).  If taken literally, the scene is simply Holden blindly wandering around his dorm room while screaming for his mother, done in an attempt to disgruntle his annoying suitemate, Ackley.  Symbolically, however, Rosen says that, “This seems like clowning, but in fact it is a revelation of his terrible anguished isolation from his family.”  Rosen reiterates isolation’s role in Holden’s mental state in his reading of a later scene, in which Holden wanders down a street, drunkenly fantasizing that he has been shot.  He calls his friend Sally from a pay phone and says, “They got me…the mob got me” (151).  Three pages later, Holden reflects upon Allie’s funeral, and refers to his family as “a mob.”  That Holden calls his family a mob so shortly after being “wounded” by the mob is not coincidental (Rosen 552).  Nor is it coincidental that during the only appearance of Caulfield parent in the novel, Holden is trapped in a closet.  The dismissal of Holden from the family and the effects of said dismissal upon his mental state juxtaposes with Salinger’s insistence that children be admired to create the message that parents should be actively involved in the lives of their offspring.  Not only should the parents be involved, though, but they should be involved positively.  Children shouldn’t suffer from the guidance of poor adult influences.  Holden’s father seems to miss quite a few significant happenings in the lives of his children, including Phoebe’s Christmas play, due to business travel.  To a young and impressionable mind, his absence due to the pursuit of money may suggest that detachment from the family is acceptable so long as it is with purpose.  Holden’s mother is not without guilt, either; she refuses to move on from the death of her son, and “She’s nervous as hell.  Half the time she’s up all night smoking cigarettes” (158).  Though her sadness is understandable, in allowing her feelings of anxiety to be readily noticeable, she fails to provide a positive model for her children as to how to cope with the loss.  Despite their failure to treat Holden the way Salinger intends for children to be treated, Holden remains loyal to his parents.  In her defense of the morality of The Catcher in the Rye, teacher June Edwards says, “Catcher’s leading character is not rebelling against parental values.  He is roaming the streets of New York because he wants to protect his family from the hurt he thinks his failure will bring” (41).  Nothing that Holden does is done without consideration of his morality.
    It is Holden’s morality that drives his desire to become a “catcher,” and perhaps one of the primary functions of the catcher would be to provide a model for children as to how to mature into an adult while keeping innocence intact.  Of course, Holden cannot serve as an adult model without first becoming an adult himself, which is the paradox of the book.  In Innocence Under Pressure, author Sanford Pinkser uses the word “supermorality” to describe Catcher, writing, “the uncompromising morality of [Salinger’s] protagonist is simultaneously the cause for outcry and the very heart of the novel’s importance.  For, far from being an immoral character as many critics contend, Holden is too moral for the world which most adults have learned to accommodate” (12).  It is Holden’s unwillingness to compromise with the shortcomings of adulthood, yet his need to do so in order to fulfill his dream, that drives him insane (Heiserman, Miller 34).  In his meeting with Holden, Mr. Antolini senses the tension between what the protagonist needs and wants, and suggests that Holden is running full speed towards the edge of the cliff from which he wants to shield children; “This fall I think you are riding for—is a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.  The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom.  He just keeps falling and falling” (187).  Mr. Antolini’s prediction was wrong, of course, because Holden did hit bottom—the psychiatric ward of an unnamed California hospital.  It is implied that with this fall and uncomfortable landing, Holden has reached adulthood.  Perhaps now he will be able to serve his role as catcher.
    The treatment of children within The Catcher in the Rye is compassionate, certainly an attitude to be admired and appreciated when considering literature appropriate for adolescents.  It cannot be said that the book is scandal free; however, as the most prevalent theme in the book is the protection of the purity of childhood, Salinger establishes his work as moral in nature.  When Salinger wrote, “Certain things should stay the way they are.  You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.  I know that’s impossible, but it’s too bad anyway.” (122), it is likely that he was suggesting childhood to be one of those “certain things,” and if that is so, within the pages of The Catcher in the Rye he may have established a “big glass case” capable of preserving the innocence of youth, one worthy of scholastic acceptance.     

Works Cited
Edwards, June. “Censorship in Schools: What's Moral about "The Catcher in the Rye?".” 1983 йил April. JSTOR. The English Journal. 2010 йил 15-September <www.jstor.org>.

Heiserman, Arthur. Miller, James E. Jr. "J.D. Salinger: Some Crazy Cliff." Salzberg, Joel. Critical Essays on Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. New York: G.K. Hall & Company, 1990. 32-39.

Jones, Ernest. “Case History of All of Us.” Salzberg, Joel. Critical Essays on Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. New York: G.K. Hall & Company, 1990. 24-25.
Pinkser, Sanford. The Catcher in the Rye: Innocence Under Pressure. New York : Twayne Publishers, 1993.

Rosen, Gerald. "A Retrospective Look ath The Catcher in the Rye." American Quarterly 29.5 (1977): 547-562.

Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1951.
Smith, Harrison. “Manhattan Ulysses, Junior.” Salzberg, Joel. Critical Essays on Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. New York: G.K. Hall & Company, 1990. 28-30.