It was the end of my sixth grade year when we were all getting geared up for the excitement of summer before entering middle school. My teacher advised us to not let the excitement go to our heads as there were still two days before school got out. However, we were doing nothing in class. She urged us to find a book to read or find some other way to busy ourselves quietly. I chose the former, and up I went to the stacked from shelf-to-shelf, book shelf. My eyes flitted from one spine to another while running my finger over each title. What did I want to read? Just pick one, I thought. I slipped a book out of its tightly wedged space on the shelf and flipped it over to the brief synopsis on the back: “According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs...” Immediately, I was hooked. The book was titled The Outsiders, and I only put it down when we were dismissed for snack and lunch. In those two days of school, I managed to finish that book and watch the film adaptation. To this day, there has not been a book since that has affected me like The Outsiders.
This book affected me because it told the tale of a boy only two years older than myself, at the time, that was faced with way more than I could imagine even at my current age. It not only affected my emotions, but it also changed me as a reader. I no longer wanted to read about a girl making friends at summer camp and loving life, but I wanted to read about real topics. Not to say people commit homicide and then get burned in buildings every day, but The Outsiders taught the struggle of growing up without a strong family unit and living in a dangerous setting. It also stressed the importance of getting to know a person completely before writing them off as a lost cause or bad influence. Dallas Winston was the cynical, unhappy, and incapable of affection character throughout most of the book until it came to his protection and value of Johnny Cade. Johnny Cade needed someone to care about him, and Dallas Winston needed something to care about. Their friendship subtly defined and reaffirmed the “you can’t judge a book by its cover” cliché for me. The lessons and themes in this novel changed my taste in literature forever.
The Outsiders was the first book I experienced that had a happy ending with a very dark and unfortunate plot leading up to it. Two characters were killed with very few pages in between their deaths. In fact, The Outsiders was the first book to make me cry while reading it. I had never encountered a novel that actually made me feel for the characters like this one did. Johnny’s death was sadly expected, but I still cried at his final words: “Stay gold, Ponyboy.” In that phrase alone, he was able to advise Ponyboy that it is not too late for him and that good things happen to good people. Unfortunately, it was too late for Ponyboy to relay that message to Dallas. It was totally unexpected when the headstrong character, Dallas or Dally, orchestrated his own suicide. Once my tears had finally dried from Johnny’s death, I was crying again at Dally’s. Any book that can evoke an emotion such as grief over a character is worth reading, and The Outsiders did it twice.
The Outsiders was the perfect book for me to read at the age I was. Even though S.E. Hinton was sixteen when she wrote it, it inspired me to start reading more honest novels at the age of twelve. I believe completely that The Outsiders is the book that shaped my opinion on coming-of-age novels. It is not so elementary that I am unable to enjoy it now, and it is not so complex that I could not read it then. I had no idea what I was getting into when I pulled it from the shelf in sixth grade and I am grateful that I took the time to become fully engrossed in its message. It changed my views on people and it changed my style of reading. Needless to say, I have not read a fluffy and unrealistic novel since that defining day in sixth grade.
