Common Sense Media Review
Popular series start shows positive girl friendships.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 12+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 10 parent reviews
Based on 44 kid reviews
Kids say this book can be both enjoyable and insightful for older tweens and teens, emphasizing strong themes of friendship, love, and personal growth, though it includes some mature content that may not be suitable for younger readers. Many appreciate the positive messages and relatable characters, but caution that younger or sensitive readers might find certain topics, such as romance and occasional swearing, challenging.
- friendship themes
- relatable characters
- mature content
- suitable for teens
- positive messages
Summarized with AI
Summarized with AI
What's the Story?
In THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS, Lena, Bridget, Tibby, and Carmen have been best friends since birth. Now, just before they're about to spend their first summer apart, they discover a pair of jeans that miraculously fits all of them. And not just fits -- the Pants make each girl look and feel beautiful and confident. They don't know it yet, but they'll need that confidence during a summer that will test them, each in different ways. In a solemn midnight ceremony that will resonate with teen readers, the girls make up a compact about the Pants, part of which is that they'll send them back and forth among themselves throughout the summer.
Is It Any Good?
Ann Brashares is a great storyteller, building a reservoir of affection for her characters that makes the climax of each of their stories effective. This book's main characters certainly experience their share of drama: Tibby befriends a 12-year-old with leukemia, Carmen's father has a new family, Lena falls in love in Greece, and Bridget has her first sexual experience, which devastates her.
The friendship that the four girls share is the kind most teens long for: rock solid and dependable, with no rivalries or pettiness to mar it, filled only with kindness, love, and understanding. This friendship -- along with the girls' openness to the world and their capacity for honest self-appraisal and growth -- gives teen readers something to aspire to.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about friendship in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. How are female friendships often portrayed in the media? What sort of impact do those portrayals have on real-life girl friendships? Why do you think this book -- and its subsequent sequels -- strike such a chord with readers?
This book has many sequels. Why are series so popular in young adult books?
What do the characters learn about themselves? How has their summer experience prepared them to deal with change as they return to their regular routines?
How do you deal with new feelings like love and attraction? How does one girl's experience with sex act as a gateway to discussing love and how it's OK to do nothing if you're unsure?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Friendship
- Topics : Friendship , School ( High School )
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Delacorte Press
- Publication date : September 11, 2001
- Number of pages : 294
- Last updated : October 1, 2025
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