Summary Template
Info taken from Chapters 1-4 of 'Outsiders' novel 

The outsiders is a novel about a boy by the name of Ponyboy. It is about loneliness, misunderstanding and innocence and sometimes even being different as Ponyboy is the one that stands out among the gang. He is not only intelligent but not the same as the other gang members as he mentions in the first chapter on page 1 of the novel. 

Ponyboy says "I'm not like them", this quote shows us that Ponyboy is aware of the way that he stands out in the gang Greasers. He says " Nobody in our gang digs movies and books the way I do", once again showing his way of being different and a bit of loneliness. On page 2 paragraph 1, we notice a misunderstanding with Ponyboy. He says "I thought I was the only person in the world that did so I loned it",by this Ponyboy means that is he the only one that likes movies and reading but, he realizes in chapter 2-3 that Cherry the hot cheerleader is alot like him. They sit and talk not only to find out that they have alot in common. He states that he likes to watch movies alone because there are no distractions and he can understand it better. 

The novel also speaks alot about identity. In the first chapter Ponyboy tells us all about his family, where they came from, their background, hair color and eye color. He mentions that his brother Darry has gone through alot in his twenty years - "Darry's gone through a lot in his twenty years, grown up too fast". He says that Sodapop his other brother is different from anybody, he understands everything, almost. Ponyboy mentions his light brown almost reddish hair and his greenish grey eyes along with his long hair, that's longer than most boys wear theirs in the novel. 

Ponyboy knows that his friends are different from him and he realizes that he isn't alone. He finds a girl who is similar to him and enjoys the things he does and that he's not alone with liking books and novels. He tries to be a leader in the gang and to jump in to help others at all times while becoming a healer.