THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS by Ann Brashares, Delacorte Press, September 2001

"Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them, and you have their shoes."--Freida Norris (from THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS)

Two years ago Random House was caught unprepared. Book Expo was held in Los Angeles and took place at the end of April, a month earlier than normal. Actually, many of the publishers were unprepared. Hampered by the early scheduling, they were unable to produce advance reading copies of those books they were banking on to bring good fortune to their fall season. In the days before driving down to LA, I recall going through publisher catalogues to find what hot new books I was interested in getting to see. (I remember, for instance, tearing the page out of Farrar's catalogue which discussed a provocative first novel titled SPEAK.)   

On my first night in LA, my friend Alan Mendelsohn at Random House (knowing how much I had loved THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM 1963) conspiratorially slipped me his own advance copy of Christopher Paul Curtis' new novel. Like I said, they were unprepared--the copies were incredibly scarce. Obviously, if Book Expo had been a month later, they would have had stacks of them--nobody at Random House could have been ignorant of what they had on their hands. Thus it was that I stayed up all night at this funky motel in LA reading the book and then came out looking like a genius by predicting the Newbery winner by May Day. (I also got Christopher Curtis for my Teacher's Night.)

Apparently determined NEVER to be caught unprepared again, Random House had two out of every three attendees last year walking around the BOOK EXPO convention floor with copies of STARGIRL and a STARGIRL bag and a STARGIRL bookmark/reader's guide.

This year, they won my prize for the largest mountain of advance reading copies for a particular book. The book is THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS. Indeed, they succeeded in getting it noticed by PW Daily. The question is: Does the book live up to the hype?

The answer is Yes!

Four girls from Bethesda have known each other since birth because their mothers met in a prenatal aerobics class. They'll all turn sixteen at the end of the summer. For the first time they are spending a summer apart from each other. The Beautiful One is going to her grandparents in Greece, The Golden Jock is going to a soccer camp in Baja, The Feisty One is staying with her dad in South Carolina, and The Rebel is remaining in Bethesda, about to start work in a discount chain store.

As they prepare to separate, the four create their Sisterhood, utilizing an extraordinary pair of used jeans as the centerpiece of a pledge to be there for each other.

"The rules took a while to sort out. Lena and Carmen wanted to focus on friendship-type rules, stuff about keeping in touch with one another over the summer, and making sure the pants kept moving from one girl to the next. Tibby preferred to focus on random things you could and couldn't do in the pants--like picking your nose. Bridget had the idea of inscribing the Pants with memories of the summer once they were all together again. By the time they'd agreed on ten rules, Lena held a motley list that ranged from sincere to silly. Carmen knew they would stick to them."

The adventures of the four girls and the shared pair of jeans are sure to be a hit with middle grade and young adult readers. When I began the book I had the expectation that it would be breezy and fun--there are definitely exotic locations and good-looking boys. But by the end I realized that it also has way, way more heart than I initially gave it credit for.

It was also a very visual read for me--it makes me wonder who bought the movie rights.

Richie Partington

Richie's Picks

BudNotBuddy@aol.com