The Outsiders
by S. E. Hinton
188 pp.     Viking     1967     $3.95

The teen-agers of the Oklahoma community in this novel are divided into the haves and have-nots: the Mustang and madras-shirt set known as the Socs and the long-haired, leather-jacketed, knife-and-chain set known as the greasers. When they meet in vacant lots for gang rumbles or personal vendettas, injury is common and murder almost inevitable. This remarkable novel by a seventeen-year-old girl gives a moving, credible view of the outsiders from the insiders — their loyalty to each other, their sensitivity under tough crusts, their understanding of self and society. Most frightening and most hopeful is the author's picture of teen-agers at the crossroads, at the point of becoming full-fledged "hoods" or something special. In Ponyboy, who lives to finish reading Gone with the Wind and to see more sunsets, and in Johnny, who dies a hero, we meet powerful characters in a book with a powerful message. As Johnny writes before he dies, "There's still lots of good in the world." JANE MANTHORNE

From the August 1967 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.