The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton, Jodi Picoult

From Shelf: Banned books that weren't actually banned but should be read

In Ponyboy's world there are two types of people. There are the Socs, the rich society kids who get away with anything. Then there are the greasers, like Ponyboy, who aren't so lucky. Ponyboy has a few things he can count on: his older brothers, his friends, and trouble with the Socs, whose idea of a good time is beating up greasers like Ponyboy.

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'The bestselling American classic of youthful rebellion and coming of age on the streets, adapted into an award-winning film by Francis Ford Coppola The Greasers and the rich-kid Socs are at war on the Tulsa streets. Ponyboy, a fourteen-year-old brawler, chainsmoker and dreamer, is a fiercely loyal greaser. But a single, murderous catastrophe is to wrench him from his old life and overturn everything he thinks he knows. The Outsiders was an audacious debut written when S. E. Hinton was only seventeen, laying bare the hopes and terrors between teenage bravado in a world of drive-ins, drag races and switchblades. Confronting America with a new breed of anti-hero from the wrong side of the class divide, The Outsiders is a young adult novel of enduring power. It was made into a film in 1983 starring Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise. With an introduction by Jodi Picoult 'Gritty, emotional and very authentic' Jodi Picoult'The Outsiders is a teenage epic' Francis Ford Coppola