Outsider

            
             At the age of sixteen she wrote her First novel, The Outsiders. I t was this book that allowed Hinton to attend the University Of Tulsa. While attending the University of Tulsa, Hinton fell in love and married David Inhofe just before graduating from the University of Tulsa in 1970. Hinton started her writing career at the early age of sixteen. She wrote part of The Outsiders for a school project and her teacher was so impressed that she pushed Hinton to write more, which led to her final copy of The Outsiders. Her books received many rewards and honors. That Was Then, This Is Now was chosen as a notable book by the American Library Association. The Outsiders was chosen by the New York Herald Tribune as one of the best teen-age books for 1967, and received the Media & Methods Maxi Award in 1975. Both books were selected as Honor Books in the Chicago Tribune Book World's Children's Spring Book Festival. Hinton enjoyed reading books as an adolescent, but was dismayed to find only a small segment of a teen-ager's life depicted in literature. To remedy this oversight, the young author began to write about teens in a setting she felt would be familiar to her contemporaries. Ms Hinton's The Outsiders was loosely based on a gang-oriented life- style of her fellow high school classmates. In reviewing the book, a critic for the New York Times commented: "Can sincerity overcome cliches? In this book by a now Seventeen-year-old author, it almost does the trick. By almost any standard, Miss Hinton's performance is impressive .""(CB 104). A Saturday Review critic expressed a similar view, noting that The Outsider is "written with distinctive style by a teen-ager who is sensitive, honest and observant .""(CB 104). Summary The Outsiders, an enthralling tale by S.E. Hinton, is an excellent story about the hardships and triumphs experienced by the Greasers and the Socs, two rival gangs. This novel suggests the stories' content because the Greasers are a gang of social outcasts and misfits.