Palish

Being in library school, I run into a lot of people with a sincere interest in children's books. Since my childhood was fueled by a voracious interest in bad supermarket novels ( The Thornbirds and Flowers in the Attic chief among them), mostly because they were long and had sex scenes, I've always thought books written for adolescents wasted my time, but I did go through a short Sweet Valley High phase. Sweet Valley High featured blond Californian twins who had a red convertible and boyfriends. Each book in the series began with a description of their honey colored hair and size six bodies (or something like that). Needless to say, this was not life as I knew it.

I picked up The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants expecting a cloud of Ya-Ya noxiciousness. Instead, I found four characters that were actually developed (though this-close to stereotypes, I admit). One is the daughter of hippies turned professionals, one has a dead mother (suicide, not cancer), one is latina, and one is Greek. Their problems are realistic enough and they think alot about sex. Best of all, only one is described as being beautiful, though the pants of the title accentuate each girl's best parts (providing confidence).

I say, hurrah for progress. Imagine what my daughter (or son) will have to read by the time I get around to having one.