The Sisterhood of the YOUNG ADULT Novels

I just finished reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I've seen the movie in passing, as it's been on HBO from time to time. The daughter from Gilmore Girls is in it, and there is something so blah about her (and the show!) that I can't even watch. The movie is like Now and Then or any other bad movie that WANTS to make a profound movie about girls' lives but manages to fail miserably. I saw the book in The Salvation Army, and it only cost 32 cents. Who was I to pass up such a deal? And, besides, I really missed reading Young Adult books. They are my absolute favorite.

So, I read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The characters were more developed and more relateable than in the movie. I have to admit that the book was as hokey as the movie, but that it was, honestly, a pleasure to read. The girls in the book go through their own turmoil of sorts, but it's nothing too heavy to deal with. And, it's nice sometimes to read a book that you can just breeze through. So, reading The Sisterhood brought me back to my own days as a young girl and the love that I had for books. I mean, it was a love that compelled me to want to be a writer when I was little. (And, no, not a reporter. A writer. There's a difference.) I'm reminded of the last line in the movie, Stand By Me (Stephen King's short story, The Body), when the writer types something like, "I never again had friends later in life like I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" That's kind of how I feel about books. That's why Young Adult novels are close to my heart. But, it's a distant closeness because you really cannot go back in time. Twelve is gone. Forever.

The best Y.A. books, in my opinion, are by Judy Blume. She's kind of the master. (Blubber, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself.) She later came out with Summer Sisters, a book that one of my friends admitted to re-reading every summer as her ritual. Lurlene McDaniel was one of my junior high favorites, too. Yeah, all of her main characters had terminal illnesses. But, nothing was too intense, too desperate, or too unbearable.

Young Adult books are so important to children of a certain age because they read these books at such a critical point in their lives--right before high school and right about the time school portraits should be outlawed because everyone seems to look incredibly awkward and ugly. I still really like the Y.A. books--not because they are escorting me into my teens, but because they remind me of how free and optimistic and open I once was. And, because, you know, I still want to be a writer. And, no, not a reporter. There's a difference.