The author of the book the outsiders is Susan Elois Hinton. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since she was young, she has always loved reading, but she wasn't satisfied with the literature, so she decided to write the outsiders. This book was her first novel and when she published it, it became very popular and S. E. Hinton became very famous. She wrote more books after that book, such as That Was Then, This is Now, Rumble Fish, and etc. Her first novel, the outsiders, which became very famous was different with other books. Many books that I've read had similar types of stories and endings, but this book, even the beginning was different. There's a boy who's name is Ponyboy, his parents were killed and he lived with his two older brothers. He always hang out with Dally's gangs and even he just became fourteen, he smoked. This showed that he's not normal like other kids and made me more interesting about him. Ponyboy is my favourite in the novel. His parents were killed, but he was still brave and strong. His behaviour made me more embarrased. When his friend, Johnnycake killed Bob who beaten him once so badly. Ponyboy ran away with Jonny together because he was also mad about Darry hit him for being late. He was very brave even he just turned to fourteen. When he ran away and hide in the destroyed church with Johnny, he told Johnny 'We ain't gonna cry no more, are we?' From this quotation, I found that he was a very brave boy who cares about others not only himself. The setting of this novel is quite dark and misery, because at the beginning of the story, Ponyboy's parents were killed and he hanged out with group of gangs. I think it would have worked in another type of setting such as country where many people don't live and have bad weather. It will make you feel depressed when the weather is really bad and it would also have made the story more dim and gloomy. But I think the setting of the outsiders matched very well to this novel. In the novel, he and his gangs hated other gangs so much, I want to ask him why they hate each other so much, and I also want to ask him why did he ran away with Johnnycake without telling his brother Sodapop, who loves him so much as older brother. Ponyboy described his oldest brother Darry as very cold person and when Ponyboy said that Darry has icy cold eyes, it made me felt Darry is very cold person like an ice, so I think that description was effective explain about Darry. I think this novel is appropriate on a grade 8 Reading List, many people hates long and boring book, but this novel is very different than the other books and made me read more and more. I hope I can share this nice well-written novel with grade 8 students.