Susan Eloise Hinton, also known as S. E. Hinton, started writing The Outsiders when she was only fifteen years old. Little did she know, the book would win numerous awards and sell over 10 million copies. One of the reasons for the book's success may have been that there were not many books for teens other than the typical girl meets boy stories. She learned many important life lessons and implemented many of them into her books. Three important themes she put into The Outsiders were people are multidimensional, stereotypes aren't always accurate, and fighting doesn't solve problems. The first theme is people are multidimensional. Ponyboy first realizes this when Cherry agrees to help them. He had always thought of the Socs as the rich kids
