What defines a family? That is the underlying question in the life of Pony Boy Curtis. When his parents die in a car wreck, he comes to depend on the love, friendship and support of his two older brothers and a gang of friends defined by poverty, bad attitudes and long greasy hair. The gang, called greasers, carry on a long-standing war with a group of rich kids, known as Socs, a fight fueled by ignorance and prejudice.

Sensitive and vulnerable, Pony Boy and another boy, Johnny, run away after they are attacked in a park by a gang of Socs and Johnny stabs one of them. They flee to an abandoned church well out of town to escape the police. The pair prepare for a life on the lam, but a fire caused by a discarded cigarette turns the fugitives into heroes as they rescue some young children. Unfortunately, in doing so, Johnny is badly injured and taken to the hospital, leading to a climax reminiscent of Rebel Without A Cause.

S.E. Hinton first wrote The Outsiders as a high-school English project, and many of the characters were based on friends and acquaintances. The story deals with issues of prejudice, family and redemption written with a gritty reality only possible from someone who has lived it first-hand. One of the first books to deal honestly with high school angst honestly and unswervingly, The Outsiders is a classic teen novel, and certainly Hinton's most popular. It was made into a movie in 1983 directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and starring a cast of brat-packers including Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio and Rob Lowe.

The Outsiders is compelling reading, full of honesty, vivid action and sympathetic characters, kids you probably knew, or were, in high school.

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Copyright © by Paul A. Paterson, 2002

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