Book Report

The main character in the book The Outsiders by: S.E. Hinton was Ponyboy. Ponyboy was a part of a gang called the greasers. Most people thought that all greasers were bad people pretty much because of the way they looked. They all had greased back hair with a tough look on their faces to not mess with them or they would seriously mess with you while they had a cigarette in their mouth. Unlike most of the other greasers in the gang Ponyboy is smart and has some common sense, he knows when something bad will happen if he makes the wrong choice. In this book Ponyboy has the greaser look, but he doesn’t like to be the bad guy in any situation, but Ponyboy gets into some trouble with some of their enemies in the Soc gang. Ponyboy is a nice kid who is always looking out for people especially his best friend Johnny. Ponyboy and Johnny stick together in the gang and they always know that at least someone will have their back. When Ponyboy was almost being drowned by a Soc named Bob, Johnny was right there to help out Ponyboy. When Johnny was hurt in the hospital Ponyboy came over every day to visit him and make Johnny feel loved. Ponyboy is also extremely brave. In one chapter Ponyboy is with his friend Johnny in Windrixville, as they were about to leave the town they had realized that the church was on fire and there were little kids screaming for help. The people in the town didn’t know what to do so Ponyboy and Johnny stepped up to help the children inside the church from the flames and became well known heroes. Ponyboy is a very loving person. One of the gang members Dally, who Ponyboy isn’t the biggest fan of, was injured and got put into the hospital. Even if Ponyboy didn’t really like Dally he still went up to the hospital with him because the greasers were the only family Dally had left, and Ponyboy couldn’t let him feel alone. Ponyboy has also done some bad things. Ponyboy was at a park by his house with Johnny one day and a group of the Socs showed up. One of the Socs started to drown Ponyboy by a nearby fountain, so Johnny jumped on the Soc and stabbed him. Both Johnny and Ponyboy knew that the police would soon be after them so they ran away, but in the end they were caught but not sent to jail.

The author S.E. Hinton chose Ponyboy’s point of view. I think the author chose Ponyboy because he was the youngest of the greasers and he sees and knows everything that goes on in the gang. I think Ponyboy was a good choice for the point of view but I also think that Johnny would’ve been a good point of view too. Just like Ponyboy, Johnny had some tough things going on in his life too, if not worse than Ponyboy. Johnny was about the same age as Ponyboy and Johnny was pretty much living on his own. His parents could care less what kind of danger or harm Johnny was in. Johnny is a tough kid and knows how to look out for himself and for the others in the gang. I think if S.E. Hinton made the story line and point of view for Johnny the book would be similar, just a little more into how it would feel to be unloved by your family and being a young boy living on the streets all by yourself without people to turn to.  Over all I really enjoyed this book. I would recommend this book to anyone especially if they are wondering what it’s really like to live with a gang and what not back then. I probably would not recommend this book to anybody who really gets into books and can’t handle death .I would also not recommend The Outsiders to somebody who doesn’t like to read or hear anything about fighting, people getting hurt, and about quite a bit of blood. Even if you don’t like those things I would still tell you to read this book because this is the way it seems like more and more teenager are starting to live because of many different reasons. This author does a good job explaining things in detail but not too much detail that would turn you away from this book. This book was very intriguing and made me want to keep reading it. There was never a dull moment that I can remember from this book. So all in all I really like this book and I would encourage everybody to read it too.