Reading Response

                                                       The Catcher in the Rye

 I read the "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger. I really enjoyed it, and thought it was beautifully written. It is about a teenager named Holden Caulfield, who has been in many schools, and kicked out of them all. He tells his story as if, he is recalling it to the reader. I had never red a book with that viewpoint of writing, I thought it was interesting and new, and I enjoyed it. Holden is very mature for his age, and is also very smart. That brings us to one of the main issues in the book, Holden is very smart, but has been kicked out of so many school because he doesn't apply himself in school. In the book he had one teacher who knew this, and Holden really liked him, when Holden was kicked out of his most previous school, he went and talked to this teacher from a different school. When Holden is kicked out of Pencey (his most previous school) he travels to New York City and walks around until the letter saying he was expelled gets mailed to his house and it kind of blows over. He busies himself around town, and eventually sneaks into his own house to talk to his little sister, Phoebe. This is the only other person who he can actually talk to, who knows him for who he really is.

                   This is something I see a lot, I know a lot of kids who are actually really smart, but don't apply themselves in school. Because of that they then get bad grades and in turn that can affect their whole life. It's sad because they are messing up their future just because they don't apply themselves, but if they did could get really good grades. I think it is an issue that needs to be addressed to kids and maybe even whole schools.