The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

2002, first published 2001  

The traveling pants of the title are a pair of jeans bought from a charity. The four friends, Bridget Carmen, Lena and Tibby pass them on to each other during a long summer in which each of the girls grows up a little.  So, we approach the bildungsroman of the young adult.

Bridget embarks on a forbidden relationship with an older boy a coach at her summer camp. Carmen behaves badly when she is confronted with her father’s new family. The beautiful but rather shy Lena causes a misunderstanding between her and Kostos, the grandson of friends of her grandparents.  Tibby works at Wallman’s and befriends Bailey, a younger girl who is dying of leukaemia.

The pants develop a spiritual quality and bring luck and meaningfulness to each girl as she wears them        

Each chapter contains glimpse of each of the girls and is headed by a quote usually from literature though there is also a quote from a bumper sticker.

The book is 304 pages long.  The chapters are quite short. The text is blocked and in an adult serif font. Other fonts are used for had-written notes, giving each girl a different sort of handwriting. 

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Anne of the Island L M Montgomery

2017, first published 1915

Anne goes to Redmond and studies there for her B A. Readers get a taste of university life.  This must have been quite innovative at the time it was written and isn’t too old-fashioned even for a 21^st century reader.  Anne and three of her friends enjoy an interesting house share.   

We meet several old friends from Avonlea – Gilbert Blyhte, Diana Barry, Marilla and Mrs Rachel Lynde.  

Anne has to face death. One of her best friends from school, Ruby Willis, dies of TB.

There is romance as well. Anne meets handsome Roy Garner, the romantic hero of her dreams. He woos Anne but in the end she tunes him down; she does not love him. At the end of the novel Anne and Gilbert become engaged.     

Childhood friend Diana marries her Fred.  Housemate Phil, who can never make up her mind and waivers for a long time between two suitors until she finds a third in her dear Jo, soon to become a minister. Anne attends this wedding and several others. Anne herself receives three proposals before she accepts Gilbert’s second attempt.  

Typically for this age group, Anne only realises she loves Gilbert after Roy’s proposal but Gilbert seems to be seeing a lot of another girl, Christine.  In the end Anne finds out that Christine was already engaged to someone else, and that Gilbert was just looking out for her; she was the sister of a good friend of his.  

L M Montgomery is a skilled writer. Her characters come alive.  They are rounded and believable. Her smooth prose carries us along. We are given a real sense of time and place.

She portrays a life that will be somewhat alien to the modern teenager.

The book is 306 pages long.  The chapters are of a reasonable length and each has a self-contained story though some longer stories run through the book  

Goggle-Eyes by Anne Fine

1990

Kitty’s classmate comes to school with red eyes. She has been crying and is still clearly upset. She runs out of the classroom and Kitty is sent after her to see that she is all right. The girls spend a long time in a cupboard as Helen tells Kitty that she is upset because her mother has acquired a new partner whom she does not like and Kitty comforts her with her own story about a similar situation she has experience..

Goggle-eyes, aka Gerald Faulkner is her own mother’s new partner. He obtains the name because of the way he looks at Rosalind, Kitty’s mother, when she wears an outfit that he has asked her to put on.  Kitty thinks he’s treating her mother like a Barbie doll.   

There are many shades of grey here which may challenge the target reader who still sees the world in black and white. The reader is in fact invited to find Goggle-eyes sympathetic before Kitty herself realises that there is more to him than she had at first thought.

He is very different form her mother but perhaps they complement each other.

Rosalind and Kitty have some common ground: they are against nuclear weapons and quite a big part of the novel is taken up with an activist event at a nuclear submarine base. Goggle-eyes presents an opposite maybe equally valid opinion and invites the young reader into the debate.

The text is a little dated: there are no mobile phones and the nuclear arms consideration isn’t perhaps our main priority today. Yet broken marriages and parents acquiring new partner is a challenge for young people that persists.

This is quite a short book though the chapters are long.            

Anne of Avonlea by L M Montgomery

 2017, first published 1909

Anne returns to Avonlea and becomes the village school teacher. She and Marilla take on twins Doris and Davey after Marilla’s third cousin Mary dies. Doris is a very well-behaved child.  Davey is always up to mischief. 

We meet several old friends from Avonlea – Gilbert Blyhte, Diana Barry and Mrs Rachel Lynde. Anne and Gilbert are now friends.  There is a hint of romance, but we shall have to read the third book to find out if that really happens.  We meet plenty of other new interesting characters too: outspoken Mr Harrison, romantic Miss Lavender and dreamy child Paul Irving.  

Anne and her friends set about improving Avonlea though almost become the laughing stock of the village when the hall is painted a bright blue. 

There is still some sadness about Matthew’s death. 

The book ends with Anne preparing for life at college.     

    

L M Montogmery is a skilled writer. Her characters come alive.  They are rounded and believable. Her smooth prose carries us along. We are given a real sense of time and place. 

She portrays a life that will somewhat alien to the modern teenager.

The book is 327 pages long.  The chapter are of a reasonable length and had each has a self-contained story though some longer stories run through the book   

Theatrical by Magggie Harcourt

2018

This is a long book –some 439 pages in fact – excluding end matter. It use a serif font with difficult ‘a’s and ‘g’s .  It is also quite a small font.  So, this presents some reading challenges. 

The novel is packed with details of the theatre. This would be a very good read for any young person who is thinking of a career in the theatre. Maggie Harcourt, a lover of theatre herself, includes  all of the technical details into the story, without detracting from it.   

Hope Parker is the daughter of well-known theatre costume designer, Miriam Parker, but secretly applies for an internship in stage management with the Earl Theatre.  It is important that she manages her life in the theatre world without relying on her mother’s influence.  To her great surprise she is successful at her interview. 

There is a gentle romance as well. 

Hope’s relationship with her parents and her two perfect sisters is strained but all of the characters remain rounded. 

There is plenty of tension and pace as Hope overcomes problem after problem.      

Awaken by Meg Cabot

2013  

This is actually the third book in a trilogy. Protagonist Pierce Oliviera lives in the Underworld with boyfriend John who comes from a different era. As well as dealing with Fates and Furies, Pierce and John face many of the issues that 21^st century young adults encounter. 

The pace is fast and the characters develop well.    

Each chapter is prefaced with a quote from Dante’s Inferno. By the end of the novel the young reader will have encountered some important parts of this classic. 

The reference to mythology should spark some curiosity in the reader though they can enjoy the novel without knowing the stories behind it. 

A useful list of characters and places is found at the end but I found I did not need to refer to it, even though I’d not read the first two books.

The book is 343 pages long with blocked text and printed in an adult font.