Consider other books by S.E. Hinton, such as That Was Then, This Is Now, Rumble Fish, and Taming the Star Runner.
Consider other works that speak of American gang struggles in the mid-twentieth century, such as Bernstein, Sondheim, and Laurents' West Side Story, and to gang life later in the twentieth century, such as Walter Dean Myers' Scorpions.
Consider other young-adult novels in which teenagers struggle with the law and their communities, such as Walter Dean Myers's Monster and Sharon G. Flake's Bang!.
Consider other seminal young adult novels, such as J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, and Cynthia Voigt's Homecoming....