Maybe Cherry stood still and watched the sun set while she was supposed to be taking the garbage out. “I used to watch them, too, before I got so busy …” I’ll bet you watch sunsets, too.” She was quiet for a minute after I nodded. “You read a lot, don’t you, Ponyboy?” Cherry asked. The passage pertaining to this “reveal” is designed to give its teenage reader a little glow of pride: I like books and sunsets, too! So I must be deep and special, too, just like Ponyboy. Ponyboy, our hero, is deep because he likes reading and sunsets, and this information is presented to us as though it is the rarest thing in the world for a teenager to enjoy such things. The Outsiders appeals so strongly to teenagers because it’s written in what is plainly a teenager’s voice: very earnest, very convinced of its own alienation, very convinced of its own profundity. In other words, without The Outsiders, there may well be no Twilight. Together with Catcher in the Rye, The Outsiders helped to create today’s YA book market. All of a sudden, they realized that there was a separate market for young adults.” It nearly went out of print - until, Hinton says, her publishers found a better audience for it: “Teachers were using it in classes. But The Outsiders, initially marketed to adults, flopped. At 17 she sent it to a publisher, and she received her book contract on the day of her high school graduation. Hinton started writing the book at age 14, using the working title A Different Sunset. It is adolescent in every way, from its creation story to its legacy to - most especially - its contents. The Outsiders turns 50 today, but don’t let its age fool you: This book is a teenager, has always been a teenager, and always will be a teenager.
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