That Was Then, This Is Now Author: S. E. Hinton | Language: English | ISBN:
B007ZUV20A | Format: PDF
That Was Then, This Is Now Description
Another Hinton classic available in a great new package. Companion to
The Outsiders,
That Was Then,
This is Now is S. E. Hinton?s moving portrait of the bond between best friends Bryon and Mark and the tensions that develop between them as they begin to grow up and grow apart. Now, it too is available in this great new package featuring the larger trim size, eye-catching new cover art, and all-new bonus material. And, like
The Outsiders, the new edition will also maintain the same pagination as the previous edition?making it ideal for continued classroom use.
- File Size: 353 KB
- Print Length: 160 pages
- Publisher: Speak (May 15, 2012)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B007ZUV20A
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,859 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #17
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Classics
- #17
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Classics
I have loved this book since I was a child and it remains one of my favorites today.
The protagonist is a bright, articulate boy named Byron. He lives with his almost nonexistent mother and his adopted brother, Mark. An accomplished car thief ("nothing to hot wiring," according to him) and lover of fights, Mark is bad news. Byron describes him in an almost feral way; Mark had leonine coloring and features and his most outstanding feature is his amber colored eyes. Being with Mark is like a roller-coaster ride. Byron enjoys the excitement that living on the edge with Mark can bring.
The characters are sharp and richly drawn as is the Oklahoma town of the mid-1960s where the story takes place. One gets a strong, compelling sense of the characters and the dividing line in their immediate community. The "Greasers," so called because of their love for Elvis and tendency to use hair grease are looked down upon because they live on the "wrong side of the tracks," the east side of town. The Socs, (short for "Socialites") on the other hand are their affluent West Side counterparts. Byron falls hard for a socially mobile girl and takes her little brother, nicknamed M&M under his wing. The girl later ends up dating Byron's friend, the weirdly named Ponyboy who is in Byron's social circle.
The kids in this work, as in all of S. E. Hinton's works are highly independent. Adult characters are peripheral at best. The story is really about the young people in the Oklahoma community and their issues, confrontations and interactions. S. E. Hinton's books during this time period tend to be juvenocracies, that is ruled by youth.
Guns, drugs and violence are all part of the story.
When I was in tenth grade, my English teacher read "The Outsiders" by S. E. Hinton to the class. I loved the book so much that I reread it one year later and consider it one of the best examples of fiction about teenagers. While this book isn't quite the caliber of "Outsiders" it is another excellent novel about teenagers experiencing troubles.
Bryon and Mark are teenage boys who are juvenile delinquents. They live in the same house and call each other brothers, even though they are not. Mark's parents shot and killed each other in a confrontation over the fact that the man knew that he was not Mark's biological father. After their deaths, Mark moved in with Bryon and his mother.
Although Bryon's mother is put forward as a good woman, she pays little attention to the boys. They stay out as late as they want, occasionally not coming home for days. They are in trouble a great deal although Mark is one of those people who always seems to be able to charm his way out of difficult situations.
As the story unfolds, the boys get in fights, hustle pool, Bryon falls in love, one of their older friends gets killed in a gun battle defending them, Mark starts selling drugs and Bryon sees a young innocent boy ruin his life taking drugs.
Bryon begins correcting his life, he gets a job, gets good grades and reports Mark over to the police. At the end, Bryon goes to visit Mark in the juvenile jail and he realizes that Mark hates him and would kill him if he had the chance. The jail time turns Mark into a hardened criminal, or more precisely causes those tendencies to come to the surface.
There is no happy ending to this story, just an ending that could have been much sadder than it was.
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