Hinton, S. E

Ponyboy is a Greaser. He wears his wavy hair long and slicked back and his shirts tight to show off his muscles. Sometimes he carries a knife, but it's usually just for show. He lives on the wrong side of the tracks with his older brothers Darry and Sodapop. Even though his parents died in a car accident, Ponyboy gets to live with his brothers - as long as they behave. So Ponyboy stays out of trouble as much as he can, and is careful not to get caught when he can't. Sometimes Ponyboy wishes he lived someplace where he didn't have to worry about walking alone at night, or that the Socs might jump him and do to him what they did to his friend Johnny. Would he always be looking over his shoulder, always afraid, always an outsider?.

A junior high school boy idolizes his older brother, the coolest, toughest guy in the neighborhood, and wants to be just like him.

Three brothers struggle to stay together after their parents' death, as they search for an identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society.

Rivalry between rich and poor gangs in 1960s Oklahoma leads to the deaths of three teenagers and intense soul-searching for one of the kids involved, a sensitive fourteen-year-old writer named Ponyboy.

Sixteen-year-old Mark and Bryon have been like brothers since childhood, but now, as their involvement with girls, gangs, and drugs increases, their relationship seems to gradually disintegrate.

Sent to live with his uncle after a violent confrontation with his stepfather, sixteen-year-old Travis, an aspiring writer, finds life in a small Oklahoma town confining until he meets an eighteen-year-old horse trainer named Casey.