Sisterhood+of+the+Traveling+Pants

Brashares, A. (2001). //Sisterhood of the traveling pants//. New York, NY: Delacorte Press. **Summary ** Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a novel about four best friends, Tibby, Carmen, Lena, and Bridget. Carmen buys a pair of jeans at a thrift store and they soon realize these are magical pants because they fit every girl perfectly. Before the girls part ways for the summer, they decide that they should share the pants. They make a pact and rules around the pants, i.e. they cannot be washed and you must write on the pants what happens to you while wearing them. Lena goes to Greece to visit her grandparents. There is a boy in the village names Kostas, that her grandmother tries to set her up with but she isn’t interested in the beginning. She goes swimming and thinks that he is spying on her. This causes a big fight between their two families. Lena realizes that she did the wrong thing and apologizes to Kostas. Carmen goes to visit her father in Charleston, SC. She thought it would be a summer with just her father and her. She quickly realizes that he has created a new life for himself and is engaged, living with another woman and her two teenage children. She battles feelings of not fitting in and goes back home. Later, she explains her feelings of not belonging to her father and flies back to Charleston to surprise him for his wedding. Bridget goes to soccer camp in Baja, Mexico. Her mother died when she was young and doesn’t have a strong family life with her father and brother. She was seen as the prettiest girl at camp and the best soccer player. She quickly begins to grow feelings for a camp counselor 3 years older than her, Eric. She spends the summer trying to win his heart but ends up heartbroken.  Tibby stayed in Maryland and got a summer job. Through her job, she met a girl that has Leukemia, Bailey. Throughout the summer, Bailey and Tibby grow a friendship that ends too soon when Bailey dies. When Carmen came home, she was there for Tibby as she went through Bailey’s death. They all experience different problems normal teenagers face, i.e. love, death, family issues. Throughout the summer they wrote letters and mailed the pants to each other. Their friendship remained the one constant in their lives. **Critique ** I feel like this novel really relates to young adolescent girls. I think it is important for young girls to see that things that they are going through, everyone else goes through too. Girls typically have a close group of friends. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants really shows how close friendships really are. Even when the girls were apart, they called, sent letters, and worried about each other. It really shows how having a group of friends can be a great support system for adolescent girls. **Activities: ** Math Social Studies Language Arts
 * Since the girls sent the pants by mail, we could use the distances for different word problems.
 * Give different word problems to have the students compute how long it would take to travel different routes.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 18px;">Study the difference of regional parts of the US (Tibby was in Maryland and Carmen traveled to Charleston, SC.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 18px;">Study different cultures through transportation, food, etc. (Tibby/Carmen in the US, Lena was in Greece, and Bridget was in Mexico). Students could list similarities and differences between the two cultures they discovered through the reading
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 18px;">Students create a diagram to compare the girls personalities and how their lives are similar or different
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 18px;">Have students pick their favorite main character and write in their perspective how their family life contributed to how they are today