Biography Essay

S. E. Hinton's young adult novels are among the best-selling books of all time and continue to be popular with adolescent readers a generation after she wrote them. Her books, especially The Outsiders (1967), continue to be assigned reading in middleschool and high-school English classes; yet in contrast to other well-known writers such as J. D. Salinger and Robert Cormier, there is a dearth of serious examination of her work as literature, and commentators who have looked closely have tended to be highly critical. Sometimes considered to be the book that marks the beginning of contemporary young adult literature, The Outsiders has also been the target of controversy and censorship. Four of Hinton's books have also been made into popular films, and critics have also strongly disagreed about the merits of these.

According to Jay Daly, whose Presenting S. E. Hinton (1987, 1989) is the most complete source of...