Introduction


S. E. Hinton

Because she couldn’t stand the literature she was forced to read when she was in high school, Hinton was drawn to writing novels for young adults. She was only a freshman in high school when she started what would become her most famous work, The Outsiders, the second biggest seller in young adult books even today. Unafraid of exposing teenage rebellion, acts of juvenile delinquency, and social conduct found in teenage subcultures, Hinton went on to write four more novels, including Rumble Fish, that spoke directly to teens, expressing their feelings as best she could rather than trying to preach at them. Not surprisingly, Hinton herself is a bit of a rebel. She now refuses to speak or to read in public to promote her books.

Essential Facts

  1. Susan Eloise Hinton chose to use only her first and middle initials (S. E.) when it came time to publish her first novel. She figured that boys wouldn’t read her book if they knew a girl had written it.
  2. Not only did one of the greatest directors ever, Francis Ford Coppola, direct the movie version of The Outsiders, but some of the greatest up-an-coming young movie actors starred in it: Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, and Tom Cruise.
  3. Hinton’s realistic depiction of life in her novels changed the trend in books written for young adults, which had previously displayed only sugarcoated versions of the struggles real teens dealt with.
  4. When it came time for her to write her second novel, That Was Then, This Is Now, she was stumped and couldn’t write at all. Her future husband helped out by refusing to take her out on a date until she showed him that she had written at least two pages that day.
  5. Hinton was trained to be a teacher, but she never taught. After her practice-teaching, she realized she became too emotionally involved with her students’ life stories.