Inspired by rival gangs at her high school in Tulsa, Okla., American author S.E. Hintonbegan writingThe Outsiders at just 15 years old. She wrote the story primarily as a way to understand the gangs by writing from their point of view. Hinton would write the bulk of the novel and complete it while she was 16 years old, eventually publishing it on April 24, 1967, at the age of 18.
Hinton, whose full name is Susan Eloise Hinton, published the novel under her initials at the advice of her publisher so that reviewers would not be deterred from picking up the book if they knew it was by a female author. Hinton kept the partial pseudonym for her later works as it allowed her to better differentiate between her public and personal personas.
The Outsiders sold more than 15 million copies worldwide in its first 50 years of publication and was translated into more than 30 languages. The novel is put on many middle and high school reading curricula.
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Many novels prove to be influential, and the story by Hinton is exactly that. In 2019, the BBC compiled a list of the “100 Most Influential Books of All Time” and placed The Outsiders among them. In 1988, Hinton was awarded the inaugural Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her cumulative contribution in writing for teens, largely in part due to the influence of The Outsiders.
The Outsiders follows 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis, who believes there are simply two types of people in the world: Greasers and Socs. Greasers are poor East Side kids like Ponyboy and his friends and family. Socs are the rich West Side kids with whom they constantly clash. When Ponyboy’s best friend Johnny fatally stabs a Soc one night, Ponyboy is confronted with the reality of the world in a way he never considered and is faced with the truth of humanity.
The Outsiders remains immensely popular and moving for readers to this day, encouraging them to “stay gold.” It is available wherever books are sold.
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