《局外人》

    This is a heroic story of friendship and belonging.

    No one ever said life was easy. But Ponyboy is pretty sure that he’s got things figured out*. He knows that he can count on* his brothers, Darry and Sodapop. And he knows that he can count on his friends — true friends who would do anything for him, like Johnny Cade and Dallas Winston. Since his parents are dead, he and Sodapop are taken care of by Darry, oldest of the three.

    According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for “social”) has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude* longer than a limousine*. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he’s always been proud of it, even willing to rumble* against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers — until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc.

    The murder gets under Ponyboy’s skin*, causing his world to break down and teaching him that pain feels the same either for a soc or a greaser. While Pony and Johnny hide out after the murder, with Dallas coming to their aid and rescue*, the three greasers temporarily clean the slate* of all stereotypes* and somehow wind up as heroes.

    This classic, written by S. E. Hinton when she was 16, is as profound today as it was when it was first published in 1967.

    The book is available at online bookstores like amazon.com and dangdang.com.(SD-Agencies)