Book Reccomendations

They were just a soft, ordinary pair of thrift-shop jeans until the four girls took turns trying them on--four girls, that is, who are close friends, about to be parted for the summer, with very different sizes and builds, not to mention backgrounds and personalities. Yet the pants settle on each girl's hips perfectly, making her look sexy and long-legged and feel confident as a teenager can feel. "These are magical Pants!" they realize, and so they make a pact to share them equally, to mail them back and forth over the summer from wherever they are. Beautiful, distant Lena is going to Greece to be with her grandparents; strong, athletic Bridget is off to soccer camp in Baja, California; hot-tempered Carmen plans to have her divorced father all to herself in South Carolina; and Tibby the rebel will be left at home to slave for minimum wage at Wallman's.

Over the summer the Pants come to represent the support of the sisterhood, but they also lead each girl into bruising and ultimately healing confrontations with love and courage, dying and forgiveness. Lena finds her identity in Greece and the courage not to reject love; Bridget gets in over her head with an older camp coach; Carmen finds her father ensconced with a new fiancée and family; and Tibby unwillingly takes on a filmmaking apprentice who is dying of leukemia. Each girl's story is distinct and engrossing, told in a brightly contemporary style. Like the Pants, the reader bounces back and forth among the four unfolding adventures, and the melange is spiced with letters and witty quotes. Ann Brashares has here created four captivating characters and seamlessly interwoven their stories for a young adult novel that is fresh and absorbing.

Teens who loved Ann Brashares's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2001) will cheer its equally riveting sequel The Second Summer of the Sisterhood. As in the first novel, four teen girls who have known each other since birth (their moms shared a pregnancy aerobics class) further forge their bond of friendship through a pair of thrift-store jeans that magically, impossibly, fits them all perfectly.

Like the summer before, Carmen, Bridget, Tibby, and Lena share their individual adventures with the Pants collective, creating an engaging, kaleidoscopic narrative of four voices. This summer, Tibby attends a film program in Virginia and Bridget (Bee), whose mother has died, impulsively jets off to Alabama to get reacquainted with her estranged grandmother. Lovely Lena tries to protect herself from the heartbreak of loving her long-distance Greek god boyfriend Kostos, and Carmen deals (poorly) with her mother dating again and having the nerve to borrow the Pants!

The Second Summer, while breezy and fun to read, deals seriously with love lost and found, death, and finding the courage to live honestly. The teens' lessons are often painful, but the Sisterhood prevails. Quotations from luminaries such as Charlie Brown ("Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love") to Nelson Mandela ("There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered") open each chapter and cleverly reflect the novel's many moods.

Born Blue chronicles Janie/Leshayas growth from childhood to young adulthood. Leshayas life is characterized by abandonment, anger, deceit, and irresponsibility. Leshaya, like her mother, sees the world through self-centered eyes. Her thoughts are cynical, always attributing the worst to every one she meets. Leshaya rationalizes using the people in her life for shelter, food, drugs, sex. Eventually Leshaya has a baby who she abandons, just like her mother abandons her. Leshaya leaves the baby with Harmons kind adoptive family who Leshaya subtlety convinces that Harmon is the father, even though Harmon and Leshaya never have sex. Yet, there is one honest act that Leshaya performs throughout the book. She sings. She sings beautifully. She is a blues singer and she does manage to achieve some success singing since she is so naturally talented. Her ambition is to be one of the great blues singers and she makes some strides, often thwarted by her inability to trust and to commit, and thwarted by her dishonesty and selfish outlook.

Grade 7 Up-Sixteen-year-old Phillip (Pip) is a pot-smoking, alcohol-swigging, smart-mouthed troublemaker who resents being responsible for his six-year-old brother. Pip forgets to pick Mikey up, swears at him, threatens him, and wishes he'd go away. But he is still a better caregiver than their violent, alcoholic father or vacant, pill-popping mom. Pip is angry and withdrawn, but terrified enough when his caring principal threatens to call his dad that he agrees to attend his classes and get counseling. His growing awareness of Mikey's loss of innocence culminates in a "This is me" epiphany during group counseling. There is little subtlety here. Rather, the messages are stated explicitly and repeatedly. Italicized statements break into the first-person narrative, revealing a more honest, introspective voice than the protagonist shows the world. The principal regularly checks up on Pip's progress, functioning as a sort of Greek chorus. Allusions to Superman and kryptonite are less clearly linked to the plot than Mikey's withering barrage of questions about M&M's (hard shell, soft inside). Pip's reading of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde for English class provides obvious parallels to his own and his father's hideously inconsistent and monstrous behavior. Subplots are peripheral, the setting is unstated/universal, and the family violence and drug/alcohol use will strike chords of recognition with many readers. Characterization is thin to nonexistent, but Pip's inner rage and desperation are poignantly portrayed and should provide some hope to teens facing addicted parents.