Despite the fact that CliffsNotes has helped me through one too many an English Lit quiz, I believe that this is taking it a little too far. Catcher in the Rye is, by far, one of my favorite books of all time, and to create CliffsNotes for it requires something less than academic foresight. Talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees. The entire point of J.D. Salinger's one and only published novel is that though we do need to carry out our schooling, education isn't there to cloak the mind into believing that regurgitating facts onto meaningless scraps of wood pulp. It's there to take the free thought that we have and expand it, so that we can better express ourselves, and not bury who we are behind a pile of textbooks. The specifics of the life of Holden Caulfield are not important. The generalities of the life of Holden Caulfield are not important. What is important is the ideals expressed in the book--not where Holden went to school, not how many times he mentions the hunting hat, not where the ducks do actually go. Both teachers and students of today must learn that teaching others and yourselves that this is all that's important is like building a wall around yourself. So read the book. It'll bring you to something closer to happiness than an A ever will. And hell, if you actually read the thing, you might ace it anyway.