Brashares, Ann. The sisterhood of the traveling pants.

BRASHARES, Ann. The sisterhood of the traveling pants. Random House, Dell. 294p. c2001. 0-440-22970-7 $6.99. JS*

This is the book, now available in paperback, which comes before The Second Summer of the Sisterhood. The two have been extremely popular and perhaps need little further introduction here. Four girls, friends from the time they were babies, are now 15 years old, and this summer they are going in four directions. Just before they disperse, one of them finds a pair of pants at a used clothes shop and they discover the pants fit each girl perfectly, even though they are four different shapes and sizes. And the pants make them feel special; they are somehow magical. The girls agree to ship the pants one to the other in their four separate locations--so the pants start in Greece where Lena is visiting her grandparents, they go to soccer camp in Mexico where Bridget has a (forbidden) crush on a counselor, they are sent to Carmen who is visiting her father in the South, and they return home to Tibby, who has befriended a dying child. The pants are just one connection for the four friends--they also write to one another and think of one another all the time, wanting to talk over their experiences, which are frequently overwhelming.

The book is a wonderful tribute to the power of friendship, which must account for its great success. (An ALA Best Book for YAs.) Claire Rosser, KLIATT