During the 2002-03 school year, Michael B., Rebecca D., and Aldo V. were eighth-graders at the Regional Gifted Center program at the Beaubien School in the Chicago school system. In February, the Beaubien School held an annual contest for eighth-graders to determine the design for the class T-shirt. Michael was disappointed that his design did not…

The author learned that the book "The Catcher in the Rye," so important to him as a young man, had been challenged by adults and could easily have been barred from his school's reading list. He started thinking about who had the power to tell him what he could and could not read as a teenager and as a high school student. What were the…