Write what you know, practicing writers tell the young and aspiring, and in 1965, 15-year-old Susan Hinton did just that, penning a fictional piece inspired by the rivalries of two gangs at her high school.
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Hinton went on to acclaim as a writer of young adult fiction, with her first four titles later adapted as films, and induction to a university Hall of Fame for poets and writers in her American home state.
A 1988 award citation noted Hinton’s ability to show the needs of youth: “… for independence [as well as] ... loyalty and belonging, the need to care for others, and the need to be cared for by them”.
Some 50 years since its debut, The Outsiders still resonates as a must-read about disaffected youth for many high schoolers. Perhaps some copies could be handed to our local decision-makers.
This dithering over the viability and location of a skate park demonstrates how far removed some decision-makers are from the needs of the young demographic who’d directly benefit from the facility.
It also ramps up the urgency for those aged to 25 years to apply for the QPRC Youth Advisory Council vacancies currently advertised, with expressions of interest due by Friday, December 1.
Despite sharing a moniker, the ‘Braidwood Outsiders’ could not be further from the desperate and dangerous lives portrayed in Hinton’s classic tale. The community group works to enhance public outdoor spaces for Braidwood’s recreational well-being, particularly our young (and young at heart).
But their work on the skate park plan will be wasted if their needs are not given the care of consideration.
Hinton, then a teenager, wrote about what she knew: the needs of youth. Times have changed in five decades, but those needs have not, nor the ability of young people to know what’s best for them.
Let them belong, let them be loved, and let them be.