New Teen Literature
S. E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders, published in 1967, differed radically from earlier teen
novels. Most novels for teens projected a clean-cut, problem-free version of youth, with
romantic love and sports as common topics. In contrast, The Outsiders dived into a much
grittier reality, exploring complex and often disturbing issues, such as isolation, violence,
and economic inequality. The Outsiders was itself authored by a teenager: Hinton was
seventeen at publication. Her frustration with the existing literature was her impetus for
writing the book. "There was only a handful of books having teenage protagonists: Mary
Jane wants to go to the prom with the football hero and ends up with the boy next door
and has a good time anyway," she told The New Yorker magazine in 2014. "I couldn't see
anything going on in those books that had anything to do with real life."
What is the main, or central, idea of the passage?
In contrast to most previous novels written for teenagers, Hinton's The
Outsiders deliberately dealt with difficult issues.
The teen novels that were popular in the 1960s often concerned lighthearted
stories about high school.
Hinton was a teenager herself when her young adult novel, The Outsiders,
was first published.
It