The Outsiders
by S.E. Hinton

Penguin Group, 1967, 180 pp., $6.99
ISBN 0-14-038572

The Outsiders is a dramatic story with multiple life changing events in the lives of the Greasers, as told by Ponyboy Curtis, the youngest member of the Greasers. The Greasers have been in an ongoing conflict with the Socs, a group of rich teenagers who look down upon the Greasers. A turning point in the story comes when Johnny and Ponyboy were running away and were jumped by 5 Socs. But one of the Socs takes it too far. He tries to drown Ponyboy but then Johnny comes in and stabs him and accidentally kills him. Ponyboy and Johnny run away to an abandoned church where they hide until one day Dally another member of the Greasers picks them up. While they were gone the church was burning down and there were kids in there so all of them jump in the to rescue the kids. Johnny gets stuck inside and the church falls on top of him and he ends up in the hospital. Johnny dies and Dally loved Johnny like nothing else and he made a decision he could never take back.

There are many interesting characters in The Outsiders. But one of my favorites is Ponyboy. He is in a situation almost everyone goes through in a teen life. He has to be in a situation he doesn’t want to be in such as fighting. Ponyboy doesn’t like to fight the Socs because he realizes that they are all similar even thought they have a different level of class and respect. They both have the same life situation but only expressed in a different way. Ponyboy’s older brother, Darry, is a mature brother that has to be like a dad because their parents died in a car crash. Ponyboy feels that Darry doesn’t really respect him or care because he gives more respect to Sodapop and yells at Ponyboy more.

This book is mostly about family and friendship. Most of the Greasers and the socs don’t really have a real family to go home to and be loved. So they form a gang of friends and trust and treat each other like brothers. This book is also about war. A battle between the Greasers and the Socs, they fight because the Socs think they could beat up the Greasers because they were poor and the Socs were rich. The Greasers would use self defense but Ponyboy believed there was a way to stop and more towards the end of the book both gangs realized they weren’t really that different at all. One of the Socs, Randy, talked to Ponyboy and noticed he was in the paper for saving the kids and he realized that they were brave and heroic and weren’t that dirty and greasy after all. Cherry, one of the Socs, liked Ponyboy because he was a nice and the type that didn’t like to fight and wasn’t mean, and Cherry realized that the Greasers weren’t all mean, dirty nasty and rude.

The writing style keeps it exciting but at the same time with not all action. It’s written in a way all teenagers would understand and the way it describes the events and characters makes it seem like reality and it could have been a true story. It’s a story teenagers can relate to in the events, conflict or the characters in the book. This book would be perfect for early teens and older, even though it was published in 1967 it can still stay with any generation and make sense.

~ reviewed by Nathan