BACKGROUND

   My topic for the project "We Didn't Star the Fire" is the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger. Thsi book was published in 1951and is narrated by the main charracter "Holden Caufield" Unfortunetely, this book was banned from many schools for it's explicit nature. There have been over 60 million copies throughout  the world. It was ranked the world's top selling book^[1]. Amazingly, this book has been translated into five different languages: Russian, Spanish, French, German, and Japanese. No one knows why but, Salinger will never let this amazing book turn into a movie. Salinger never gave any interviews or public appearences ever in his life. The Catcher in the Rye had become an emblem of the counterculturein the 1950's and 1960's.

Significance

     J.D Salinger was born on January 1, 1919. Then he died on January 17, 2010, he was 91 years old when he died. He will always be remembered for the one of a kind book. Arguably one of the best books ever written, and that is known by fact.^[2] Even Billy Joel used this book in his song as an emblem of the world of books changing. This book had changed the revolution of books. In the 1950's and 1960's the words "hell" and "damn" were big time swear words. Salinger had used these words to show people that hem can use "freedom of speech" to his advantage, and he did. Also the book was banned from schools for its profanity, alchohol abuse, drug use, and prostitution. That may not seem like a big deal now because we have books written like that all the time, same with movies. However, in the 50's and 60's that was a big deal because some of that stuff was always "on the down low" for obviouse reasons.