Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Hinton, S. E. - Zena Sutherland (essay date 27 January 1968)

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Zena Sutherland (essay date 27 January 1968)

SOURCE: "The Teen-Ager Speaks," in The Saturday Review (New York), January 27, 1968, p. 34.

[In the following essay, Sutherland examines the controversy surrounding The Outsiders, providing comments excerpted from a newspaper article by Hinton, from letters written by teenage fans of the novel, and from letters written by adults who objected to the violence depicted in the novel.]

"Have you looked at the books on the Young Adult Shelf?" S. E. Hinton asked in Read magazine November 1. "They are written by aging writers who either try to remember their own youth—which was at least fifteen years ago—or they try to write about today's teens without knowing them." S. E. Hinton, now a college sophomore, wrote The Outsiders at the age of fifteen. I'd been watching for the book because of a letter from an established writer who had read the manuscript and—although presumably...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Zena Sutherland (essay date 27 January 1968)
   2. Times Literary Supplement (review date 30 October 1970)
   3. Jane Powell (review date 2 April 1976)
   4. S. E. Hinton with Lisa Ehrichs (interview date November 1981)
   5. Gene Lyons (essay date 11 October 1982)
   6. Jay Scott (essay date April 1983)
   7. Michael Malone (essay date 8 March 1986)
   8. Charlene Strickland (review date October 1988)
   9. Elizabeth Ward (review date 12 February 1989)
   10. Patty Campbell (review date 2 April 1989)
   11. Charles Solomon (review date 12 August 1990)
   12. Steven L. VanderStaay (essay date November 1992)
   13. Susanna Rodell (review date 19 November 1995)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. S. E. Hinton