1. The Outsiders By
S. E. Hinton

2. Story Overview
A heroic story of friendship and belonging. Ponyboy can count on his brothers and his friends but not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of fun is beating up “greasers” like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect until the night someone takes things too far.

3. Main Characters
Ponyboy Curtis -  The novel’s fourteen-year-old narrator and main character, and the youngest of the greasers.
Johnny Cade  - A sixteen-year-old greaser with black hair and large, fearful eyes. Also Pony boy’s best friend.

4. Additional Characters
Dallas Winston  -  The toughest hood in Ponyboy’s group of greasers. Dallas, known as “Dally,” is a hardened teen who used to run with gangs in New York.
Darrell Curtis  -  Ponyboy’s oldest brother. Darrell, known as “Darry,” is a twenty-year-old greaser who is raising Ponyboy because their parents have died in a car crash.

5. Additional Characters
Sodapop Curtis -  Ponyboy’s happy-go-lucky, handsome brother. Sodapop is the middle Curtis boy.

6. About the author
Susan Eloise Hinton was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has always enjoyed reading but wasn't satisfied with the literature that was being written for young adults, which influenced her to write novels like The Outsiders.

7. Why she wrote the novel.
Every teenager feels that adults have no idea what's going on. That's exactly the way I felt when I wrote The Outsiders. Even today, the concept of the in-group and the out-group remains the same. The kids say, "Okay, this is like the Preppies and the Punks,“ or whatever they call themselves. The uniforms change, and the names of groups change, but kids really grasp how similar their situations are to Ponyboy's.

8. More reasons why
One day, a friend of mine was walking home from school and these "nice" kids jumped out of a car and beat him up because they didn't like him being a greaser. This made me mad and I just went home and started pounding out a story about this boy who was beaten up while he was walking home from the movies-the beginning of The Outsiders. It was just something to let off steam. I didn't have any grand design. I just sat down and started writing it.

9. Additional Novels The Outsiders Rumble Fish That Was Then, This is Now
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Taming The Star Runner
Hawks Harbor
Tim's Stories
Big David, Little David
The Puppy Sister