3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows

by Ann Brashares Narrated by Kimberly Farr

Overview

In this follow-up novel to the #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, it's time to discover a new sisterhood. A story of growing up, friendship, and understanding yourself, about three girls enjoying one last summer before high school.

summer is a time to grow

seeds
Polly has an idea that she can't stop thinking about, one that involves changing a few things about herself. She's setting her sights on a more glamorous life, but it's going to take all of her focus. At least that way she won't have to watch her friends moving so far ahead.

roots
Jo is spending the summer at her family's beach house, working as a busgirl and bonding with the older, cooler girls she'll see at high school come September. She didn't count on a brief fling with a cute boy changing her entire summer. Or feeling embarrassed by her middle school friends. And she didn't count on her family at all. . .

leaves
Ama is not an outdoorsy girl. She wanted to be at an academic camp, doing research in an air-conditioned library, earning A's. Instead her summer scholarship lands her on a wilderness trip full of flirting teenagers, blisters, impossible hiking trails, and a sad lack of hair products.


“Brashares gets her characters' emotions and interactions just right.” --Publishers Weekly

"Like the previous Pants books, this one will travel from girl to girl." --Kirkus Reviews 

Editorial Reviews

Author Ann Brashares has created a snug-fitting yet comfortable follow-up to her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants ensemble. 3 Willows introduces us to Polly, Jo, and Ama, a trio of young ladies juggling summer jobs, friendships, adventures, and even a touch of romance and flirtation.

Kirkus Reviews

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants has entered college. Now, three younger girls are about to take its place. Jo, Polly and Ama have been friends since childhood, but as high school approaches the three find themselves growing in separate directions. As in the first Traveling Pants book, the girls are spending their first summer apart. Academic Ama is hiking her way to school credit. Sensitive, quirky Polly is at home, saving her money so she can attend modeling school. Jo, newly popular, travels to her family's beach home and works her first summer job. The girls find that their physical distance brings them closer emotionally. A sweetly sentimental narrative combined with story lines of romance and parent drama ensures that like the previous Pants books, this one will travel from girl to girl. At times the characters are difficult to distinguish from one another, and the parallels between the girls' friendship and the willow trees they planted as children go over the top, but that will not detract from the book's popularity. (Fiction. YA)

From the Publisher

Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, November 10, 2008:
“Brashares gets her characters’ emotions and interactions just right.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169380033
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	01/13/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Meet Jo
So this is the last summer before high school. I'm spending it at my family's beach house. Except there isn't much family, there, really. Just my mom and me. My dad decided to stay in Bethesda and work this summer. He's a doctor. A top surgeon. After my older brother, Finn, died before I started fifth grade, he got a lot busier at the hospital. We don't talk about Finn much. Ever, really. Actually we don't talk much at all as a family. That's probably why my parents are going to get a divorce. My dad is probably going to date all the pretty young nurses at his hospital. All a trial separation will prove is that we're all separated already.

My friend Bryn helped me get a job as a bus girl at the Surfside, this big crab house in Rehoboth Beach, where our house is. There are some cool people from my school working here. It's one of the few places you can get a job when you're fourteen.

I kind of started hanging out with some new people in seventh grade. Bryn and Kylie and Marie. It's not that I don't like Ama and Polly, but...it's just that I want to be popular in high school, and I'm not so sure about them.

One of the girls from the Sisterhood, Bridget Vreeland, was a coach at my soccer camp after sixth grade. She was so cool. It made me think that being a teenager would be like that. You know, like having amazing friends and the Traveling Pants. But when I look at my old friends-Polly, with her skipping and weird doodles, and Ama, who can never do anything fun because she's too busy doing extra credit math problems-I know that is not going to happen.

I'd kind of like things to be different when I'm a freshman. I even did something crazy already -- I kissed this gorgeous boy and I don't even know his name. Ama would be horrified. But Bryn wouldn't. She would think it was exciting.

So maybe being a teenager will be cool after all. I guess I'll see what this summer brings.

Meet Ama
Everything is changing. Next year I'll be in high school. People change and places change. There's no time to look back, really. There's a lot to look ahead to.

My family moved to the United States from Ghana because my parents wanted my older sister, Esi, to go to the best possible college. And she did. She's at Princeton Pre-med.

Esi is extremely smart. She won a summer study grant from the Student Leader Foundation four years in a row. Only 200 people get them in the country. No one has received one since. Except me, now. Summer school at Andover (with my friend Grace) was my first choice. I didn't get it. Or my second. Or my third. I'm going on a program called Wild Adventures in Wyoming. It's so wrong for me. But I have to do it. It goes on my school record. My parents would never let me drop it.

Esi. School. My parents.

You could say I'm under a lot of pressure.

I also have a little brother named Bob. He's five. My parents gave him the most American name they could think of. It's kind of funny.

My friends, like Jo and Polly, aren't really as focused on school as I am. That's why I've been spending more time with people like Grace, kids on the honor roll crowd (the grade-grubbers, as Jo calls them). But there's nothing wrong with choosing to do academic projects with kids who want to succeed like I do, is there? Jo or Polly aren't serious enough about their work.

I'd heard about the Sisterhood when I was in 6th grade. It sounded amazing, to have these friends that were always there for you. A lot of people tried to be like them. Polly and Jo and I shared a pair of jeans, and then a denim skirt, and then a jean jacket, and then a scarf. That was kind of lame when I think about it.

I hope this summer works out okay.

But I'm not expecting much.

Chapter Excerpt
The last day of school was a half-day. Tomorrow the entire eighth grade would pile back into the gym for the graduation ceremony, but that was just for an hour and their families would be there. The next time Ama went to school, it would be high school.

Everything is changing, Ama thought.

Usually she took the bus home, but today she felt like walking, she wasn't sure why. She wasn't sentimental. She was purposeful and forward- looking, like her older sister. But it was an aimless time of day, and she wasn't hauling her usual twenty pounds of textbooks, binders, and notebooks. Today she felt like treading the familiar steps she'd walked so many times when she was younger, when she was never in a hurry.

She couldn't help thinking about Polly and Jo as she walked, so when she saw them up ahead, waiting at the light to cross East-West Highway, it almost felt like they appeared out of her memory.

Ama was surprised to see Polly and Jo together. From this long view, she was struck by the naturalness of the way they stood together and at the same time, the strain. She doubted they had started off from school together. These days Jo usually left school with her noisy and flirting group of friends to go to the Tastee Diner or to the bagel place around the corner. Polly went her own way- taking forever to pack up her stuff and often spending time at the library before heading home. Ama sometimes saw Polly at the library and they sat together out of habit. But unlike Ama, Polly wasn't there to do her homework. Polly read everything in the library except what was assigned.

As Ama got closer, she considered how little Jo looked like she used to in elementary school. Her braces were off, her glasses were gone, and she devotedly wore whatever the current marker for popularity was-at the moment, pastel plaid shorts and her hair in two braids. Ama considered how much Polly, in her long frayed shorts and her dark newsboy cap, looked the same as she always had.

"Ama! Hey!" Polly saw her first. She was waving excitedly. The walk sign illuminated and Ama hurried to catch up to them so they could cross the highway together.

"I can't believe you're here," Polly said, looking from Ama to Jo. "This is historic."

"It's on her way home," Jo pointed out, not seeming to want to acknowledge the significance of the three of them walking home together on this day.

Ama understood how Jo felt. The history of their friendship was like a brimming and moody pond under a smooth surface of ice, and she didn't want to crack it.

As they walked they talked about final exams and graduation plans. Nobody said anything as they passed the 7-Eleven or even as they approached the old turn.

What if we turned? Ama suddenly wondered. What if they ran down the old hill, past the playground, and stepped into the woods to see the little trees they had planted so long ago? What if they held hands and ran as fast as they could?

But the three of them passed the old turn, heads and eyes forward. Only Polly seemed to glance back for a moment.

Anyway, even if they did turn, Ama knew it wouldn't be the same. The creaky metal merry-go-round would be rusted, the swing set abandoned. The trees might not even be there anymore. It had been so long since they'd tended to them.

Ama pictured her younger self, running down the hill with her two best friends, out of control and exhilarated.

It was different now. People changed and places changed. They were going into high school. This was no time for looking back. Ama couldn't even picture the trees. She couldn't remember the name of the hill anymore.

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