I'm going to share this article with my students on Monday. A 40th anniversary edition of The Outsiders has just come out and the author has been talking about her writing.
I can't tell you how much my kids love this book - boys and girls, good readers and not-so-good. It strikes a nerve with everybody. It's incredible that it's 40 years old, since some of my students think a book from the nineties is too old to bother with. They've never heard of Paul Newman, who's mentioned in the first few lines of the book because that's how Ponyboy wants to look. (My students didn't even know about the salad dressing, but no doubt that's because they don't live in the U.S.) I told them to take my old-lady word for it, he was/is a heart-throb! There are many references in the book they don't get. But it doesn't matter. The story is so alive to them that they don't even care.
I love what Hinton has to say about teenagers, about writing, and about the book. I'm glad she took the time away from her current writing project to do the interview!
6 hours ago
2 comments:
I'm not quite the age of your students (and haven't been for a good 10 years :P), but I believe the word they're using these days is "hott." At least, that's what I've read among the pre-teen blogger set.
I never read The Outsiders. In fact, I'd always thought it was written by a man.
As for Paul Newman, I like his popcorn better than his salad dressing. :)
I think she used her initials, S.E., so that people would think she was a man. But she's a woman.
Thanks for the vocabulary! :-)
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