The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

I began reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, because several of my former students had suggested I check it out. (Side note: How cool is it that my students *actually* cared to share what they like to read with their teacher? Plus, they gave me reasons why I might also enjoy what they had read.) Megan, a fifteen-year-old sophomore, said she loved how the girls in The Sisterhood could stay friends and yet be so different. Katie, a sixteen-year-old sophomore, told me that she thought it was great that the girls depended on their friendships so much. Another sixteen-year-old sophomore, Nargis, was excited to tell me that boys weren’t the focus of the girls’ lives—a frustration she had with the plot of many YA Lit. books.

Here’s a brief synopsis of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants:
After completing their sophomore year of high school, four close friends prepare to spend their first summer apart. Carmen is excited to finally spend a significant amount of time with her father in South Carolina. Her parents are divorced, and Carmen really only sees her dad for a couple weekends a year. Lena and her younger sister Effie are headed to Greece to visit their grandparents for two months. Bridget will be at a soccer camp in Baja California. And Tibby is stuck working at Wallman’s in their hometown of Bethesda, Maryland.

As the girls are packing and talking about their upcoming summer adventures, Carmen gives Tibby a pair of jeans that she bought at a local thrift shop. Each of the friends end up trying on the pants and admiring how they seem to fit each one of them so well. It is decided that the pants possess some magical powers and will travel from girl to girl throughout the summer, carrying the tales of their journeys and giving them confidence and support while they are separated.

Well, the four friends’ summer plans do not turn out how the envisioned them to go. The pants are there as a witness to critical events and they eventually give each girl the strength to deal with/face what has happened to each of them while they were apart.

I think The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants shows how supportive teenage girls can be for each other. The girls have very different interests, personalities, family life, etc., and they recognize this as one of the main strengths of their bond. They can help each other handle what life throws at them by remembering how each of their friends might view the situation and then proceed with a solution.

I enjoyed this YA Lit. book, especially how the story frequently moves from one girl’s point of view to another’s—kept me interested in what was going to happen next. Plus, it showed how each girl could work through some rather tough, yet very realistic, situations.