The Outsiders

Title: The Outsiders
Author: S.E. Hinton
Publication date: 1967
Number of pages: 192
Genre: teen fiction

Geographical Setting: Oklahoma City

Time Period: late 1960s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Recently orphaned Pony Boy Curtis is 14 years old and growing up on the East Side of town with his brothers and friends. They are in the poor class known as the Greasers and are very different from the other kids from the wealthy West Side who are known as Socs (short for Socials). One terrible night changes Pony Boy and his best friend Johnnys’ lives forever. Now Pony Boy questions everything about his life as a Greaser and his place in a world amongst other people like the Socs.

Subject Headings: friendship, loyalty, cliques, orphans, poverty, outsiders, gangs, 1960s

Appeal: author wrote novel when she was 16, coming of age, gang rivalries, violence and abuse in families, young adult heroes, older brother as head of household, have and havenots, ALA’s top 100 “Frequently Challenged Books,” film version from 1983

If you liked The Outsiders, you might enjoy: other S.E. Hinton novels like Tex, Rumble Fish, That Was Then, This is Now. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Walter Dean Myers’ The Scorpions.