Elizabeth Bird

S.E. Hinton was a teenager herself when she wrote a novel that broke all the rules of young adult fiction.

For little people and their parents, bedtime often starts with one, or two, or a dozen books, depending on the kids' tenacity that night. Here are some children's books to delight both sides.

Susan Eloise Hinton was a teenager when she wrote The Outsiders, the story of rival gangs in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She used the pen name “S.E.” so readers wouldn’t know she was a girl, an...