The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Remember: Pants = love. Love your pals. Love yourself.

In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares, four best friends discover that they will be separated all summer long, for the first time, ever. As all four of their mothers were best friends and pregnant at the same time, the girls have been together since before they were born. Carmen, Lena, Tibby, and Bridget are more like sisters than friends.

Naturally the girls promise to write each other while they’re all away, but sometimes letters just aren’t good enough. When Tibby spies some thrift store blue jeans lying unnoticed on Carmen’s dresser, she finds herself drawn to them. Usually Tibby likes unsightly clothes and with Carmen’s backside from the Puerto Rican side of her family, there was no way the pants would fit Tibby’s long legs and narrow hips. But they did.

Lena and Bridget also tried the pants, and the magical pants fit them all. These pants were going to be the thing to keep them together throughout the summer; the summer of the Traveling Pants.

Lena is off with her sister to spend their summer in Greece with their grandparents. She spends her time exploring the beauty of Greece and painting, when she meets Kostos, her grandparent’s neighbors’ grandson. Lena has never been very graceful with boys. Kostos tries to pursue her and even though Lena finds him attractive as well, she doesn’t know how to handle his boyish charm.

Tibby, unfortunately, is stuck at home working every day at Wallman’s. She mopes around every day, thinking about how much fun her friends are having, and then she meets a 12 year old girl named Bailey. She impresses Tibby by wanting to help her create her documentary. Although she is annoyed with Bailey at first, they soon develop an unlikely and unforgettable friendship.

Carmen gets to spend her summer with her father, whom she hasn’t really seen since her parents got a divorce. She is so excited to be with him and spend time with him, until she gets to his house in South Carolina and discovers he has a new house…with a new family. Carmen is so mad that her father kept his second family from her, and she doesn’t like her new step-mother and sister.

Bridget’s summer consists of soccer, soccer, and her cute new crush, Eric, in Baja California. Eric is a tad older than Bridget and happens to be one of the soccer coaches at the camp, but that doesn’t stop her. She spends every minute trying to impress him with her soccer skills and does everything she can to get him to notice her, even if it includes breaking some rules.

Throughout the summer, the four girls write to each other and send the pants to each other. Each time one of the girls has the pants, they become empowered and feel like they can do no wrong. The pants gives each girl a confidence that they’ve never had before, and a summer they’ll never forget.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a funny, friendly, and heartwarming tale of four best friends who share a sisterhood of a lifetime. This novel is definitely for anyone who can laugh endlessly with her girlfriends and understand that some best friends are better than sisters. As the story was turned into a movie, as well, both stories are worth reading and watching.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Imagine that you could travel back in time. With the blink of an eye, you’d be gone from today and back into the days when Barbie’s were on every little girl’s shelf and all the young boys had cooties. Maybe you could have a second chance. Maybe you could change something in your past that you weren’t too fond of. Or maybe you couldn’t control when you time traveled. What if you relived your past over and over again? What if you couldn't stop it from happening? Would you want to leave your loved ones behind?

In Audrey Niffenegger’s book, The Time Traveler’s Wife, the man of Clare Abshire’s dreams is, in fact, a time traveler.

While visiting the Newberry Library, Clare stumbles upon someone she never thought she’d find in a library: Henry DeTamble. She loved him more than life itself and knew he felt the same, but here, standing in front of her, he had no idea who she was. In the present he is 28, and she is 20, but the present Henry has yet to meet his loving Clare.

Clare first meets Henry in a meadow. She is 6 years old, while he is 36. She colors and hums to herself, oblivious to his presence, until she hears someone humming along with her. Thinking it’s her pesky brother, Clare throws her shoe into the woods toward the sound. The voice she hears is not her brother, and she becomes frightened. Henry tells her not to be afraid, and when he uses Clare’s name she’s startled by how he knows her. Instead of running away from this stranger, like a normal 6 year old should, Clare is intrigued by this new time-traveling friend.

Henry continues to visit Clare in the meadow. She even hides a box full of clothes near the woods where he always appears, since he can’t take any belongings with him when he time travels. While Clare wants to know more about the future, Henry only tells her very little. She finds out that in the future, Henry is married and she becomes jealous because, even though she is still a young child, she has become very fond of him.

As Clare becomes older, Henry visits less and less. He stays in the present more with the future Clare. He can’t control when he time travels and where to. It always just happens, and it’s never very pleasant unless he time travels to wherever his sweet Clare is.

While Henry is gone, Clare finds it very difficult to be without him. Although she has many secret rendezvous with him when he is with her, her friends and family begin to wonder why she doesn’t date any boys in school. Clare knows that she can’t tell them the truth, but keeping the secret of Henry only strengthens the love she has for him.

And now, in the present, she has found her Henry again.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a miraculous novel of love through the ages of time. This novel explores the depth of love, trust, and patience as Henry and Clare battle through the years of his appearing and reappearing. This book and movie will definitely lift its readers’ spirits, make them laugh, swoon, and sometimes even cry. There is no other tale like the one of Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire. Travel back and forth through time in this one-of-a-kind love story.