The Outsiders by S.E Hinton
This 1967 novel is one of those stories that gets better and better with each read. The narrative, written in the point of view of 14-year-old orphan Ponyboy Curtis, invites you to live the life of a “greaser,” or disadvantaged teen in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ponyboy Curtis fills the reader in about his life, which happens to be much more exciting than the average fourteen-year-old’s. Filled with rumbles and parties, it is hard to imagine that he has time for school. But, Ponyboy has a secret joy for learning, and so class is nothing but an eventful pastime. However, Ponyboy emanates the total opposite of what many think a child from a “broken home” would act. Despite his mother and father’s death, his home life is still filled with immediate love and compassion provided by his two older brothers, Sodapop and Darry, as well as the rest of his gang. Do not let the ragged clothes and slicked back hair fool you, Ponyboy is not violent nor is he an addict, unless you count his immense love for film and novels. I wish I could thank Ponyboy in person for teaching me to embrace diversity. Even a pre-teen like himself understands and preaches the ideal that no matter what situation you are in, there is always something else worse, even in the lives’ of those who seem to have it all. This full-circle narrative contains as much thrill as it does honesty and compassion. Just as Cherry Valance said, “Things are rough all over.” But despite the roughness, one can always dig themselves through until they reach the gold.
These books, along with countless others, held the stories that saved me, because they reminded me that I was not alone. There were other’s struggling to understand how this crazy world works, all while suffering through gym class and struggling with algebra, just like me. What were some novel’s that helped to guide your way through adolescence?
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