What made S.E Hinton write the outsiders

Published in 1967 by Viking Press, The Outsiders was S.E. Hinton's first novel. The rivalry between the "greasers" and the "socs" was based on events in her own high school, the Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hinton began writing the novel during her sophomore year, and it was published when she was just seventeen years old. Hinton says of the inspiration behind the story:

"One day, a friend of mine was walking home from school and these "nice" kids jumped out of a car and beat him up because they didn't like him being a greaser. This made me mad and I just went home and started pounding out a story about this boy who was beaten up while he was walking home from the movies - the beginning of The Outsiders."