I was trying to think, recently, of which books I have read the most frequently. On my own, Pride and Prejudice is the most obvious answer. But ones that I teach? That is trickier. I think, though, that the answer is S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders.
I have taught this book almost every one of my teaching years - nine, now. I used to teach it to grade 9 LA, and now, 20-2 ELA.
I think everyone should read it, and, as it is one of my favourites, I think it transcends the typical question of the age at which to read it. Grades 5 or 6 and up, all the way through adulthood.
Read. This. Book.
This novel recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. It is widely regarded as the first truly "YA Novel", and with the enthusiasm for the genre now, I wonder how many people know that it all started with a teenage girl writing about Socs and Greasers, rumbles and a fire and a fountain, three brothers, a group of friends, and advice about staying gold.
The movie is one of my favourite book-to-movie adaptations, though young Patrick Swayze still can't quite make up for all of the grande parts of the book that have been removed.
But I am entirely willing to keep watching in case I change my mind.
In fact, I once had two junior high students get into an argument about whether Darry or Sodapop was better. It got rather heated.
There are problems with this book. That cannot be denied, though those problems also seem less severe, and far less significant, when it is remembered who wrote the book - a teenager. And, in fact, this actually is part of the charm.
Of course events are conveniently timed, for example. A teenager wrote it for teenagers about teenage lives, but dealing with an adult world. The angst was real, the heartache, the downright awful circumstances. Hinton is able to capture the intensity of adolescence in a gritty, sincere way, because she was, herself, an adolescent. I always have students who are surprised, actually, to find out that the author is female. Perhaps the boys in the book are more emotional and sensitive than many of them would describe them, but they seem real enough, the students say.
Each of the characters represents something specific and yet universal to adolescence. Two-Bit is the drive to find the humour in the every day, Dally the anger at a world that every teenager believes is against him; Darry is the struggle to take on adulthood and responsibility, Sodapop the charisma and popularity that so many strive to attain; Johnny personifies the vulnerability that so many try to hide and bury and even kill, and Ponyboy the questioning dreamer who wonders at the future and the identity of all of the others.
The Outsiders is the book that convinces the reluctant readers to read. Even the students who hate to read everything else, will admit that this book was at least "okay". The questions of social class, what makes someone good or bad, the individual versus the group, and the overall idea of loyalty and family, are what has brought readers to this book again and again through the past five decades.
And why I will continue to teach it to every group of students that I can, along with the wish for them to "stay gold".
Have you read this YA classic? Have you seen the movie? Do you think it is worth the popularity?
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