Audio: Summer of the Sisterhood ( CD

Ann Brashares' The Second Summer of the Sisterhood will be found equally riveting by the teens who loved The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2001). As in the first novel, four teen girls who have known each other since birth (their moms shared a pregnancy aerobics class) further forge their bond of friendship through a pair of thrift-store jeans that magically, impossibly, fits them all perfectly.Like the summer before, Carmen, Bridget, Tibby and Lena share their individual adventures with the Pants collective, creating an engaging, kaleidoscopic narrative of four voices. This summer, Tibby attends a film programme in Virginia and Bridget (Bee), whose mother has died, impulsively jets off to Alabama to get reacquainted with her estranged grandmother. Lovely Lena tries to protect herself from the heartbreak of loving her long-distance Greek-god boyfriend Kostos, and Carmen deals (poorly) with her mother dating again and having the nerve to borrow the Pants!The Second Summer..., while breezy and fun to read, deals seriously with love lost and found, death and finding the courage to live honestly. The teens' lessons are often painful, but the Sisterhood prevails. Quotations from luminaries such as Charlie Brown ("Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love") to Nelson Mandela ("There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered") open each chapter and cleverly reflect the novel's many moods. (Ages 12 and older) --Karin Snelson, Amazon.comRead More