3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows by Ann Brashares

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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.

From the Publisher

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.
It is a new summer. And a new sisterhood. Come grow with them.

Publishers Weekly

With the Traveling Pants series all wrapped up, Brashares introduces a new group of BFFs and addresses a slightly younger crowd. Living in the same town as the semilegendary Sisterhood girls, Ama, Polly and Jo have tried to share a pair of jeans and settled on a joint-property scarf (plus an induction ceremony), but their rituals are "lame," and so, they suspect, is their trio. Only socially backward Polly thinks she'll miss the others when all three disperse the summer before high school. In typical Brashares fashion, each girl faces unexpected tribulations: intellectually ambitious Ama, who is afraid of heights, has won a spot in a prestigious scholarship program-which sends her mountain climbing. Jo, newly told that her parents are divorcing, submerges her feelings in the excitement of being friends with a popular girl and having an older boyfriend-or so she thinks. Polly, sold out by Jo in the pursuit of cool, learns that her single mom is alcoholic. Fans will like the tidiness in the controlling metaphor, willow tree cuttings planted after a third-grade project, and for all the fidelity to formula, Brashares gets her characters' emotions and interactions just right. Ages 12-up. (Jan.)

Children's Literature

Marylanders Ama, Jo and Polly have been best friends since 3rd grade, but as they enter the summer before 9th grade, their paths, and relationships, grow shaky. Ama, a smart, indoorsy girl from Ghana, receives a study grant for "Wild Adventures" in Wyoming; flirtatious Jo, whose parents are beginning a trial separation, gets a waitress gig and a boyfriend; and Polly, the shy, quiet one with an eccentric, alcoholic mom, hopes to transform herself into a model. As the girls venture forth on their own, we learn of past events, like Jo's brother's death, and the planting of 3 willow trees—which serve as a lovely and apt metaphor throughout the story. Despite strange and confusing lapses into first person early on, Brasheres retains her stature as master storyteller. Once again she has created a cast of 3-dimensional, complex and (mostly) likable heroines. Fans of her "Traveling Pants" series will enjoy the occasional cameos of their older counterparts. Readers will identify with Ama's fears, Polly's desperation, and Jo's loneliness and despair. Most of all, they will cheer when Jo finally realizes her friends' worth in her life: "(They) knew the shape of who she was, and helped keep her in it. Without them she felt like she drifted and lost her outlines." Tweens and teens alike will eagerly await the next installment. Reviewer: Naomi Milliner

VOYA

Polly, Jo, and Ama became best friends on their first day of third grade. Forgotten by their parents, the girls left school together with plants they were to care for and help grow into willow trees. As the plants grew, so did their friendship. For the next six years, the girls were inseparable, caring for Jo after her brother died, giving Polly a place to go when her Mom disappeared into her art studio, and encouraging Ama while her sister achieved academic heights. Now they have drifted apart without knowing exactly how it happened. Jo wants to be popular at any cost, even if the boy she likes is a player. Ama wants to rely on her brains and not her body, even though she's won a prized scholarship to a wilderness adventure. Polly wants to find herself, even if it means trying to reshape her body in an unhealthy way. These friends are incoming freshman at the same high school setting as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, so fans will get a few glimpses of familiar characters. But that should not be the reason to read this new series. Instead be ready to enjoy the individual stories of three lapsed friends who find their way back to each other and who benefit from a stronger bond as a result of the journey back. The only disappointment comes from the lack of discussion or acknowledgment of Polly's brush with an eating disorder. Readers can only hope that it will be addressed in one of the next two proposed series books. Reviewer: Stacey Hayman

Alan Review

After four summers with the sisterhood of the traveling pants, Brashares introduces us to the next generation of best friends whose lives are linked not by pants, but by willow trees. Polly, Ama, and Jo have just finished eighth grade when they find themselves dealing with a new job, an unexpected adventure, and complicated family circumstances. Separated for most of the summer, the three become distant only to be pulled back together by tragedy. Younger readers who enjoyed Brashares's previous novels will enjoy this one as well. Their story is told from three different points of view, and Brashares includes observations about willow trees as a device for setting up each section. Although 3 Willows seems to have been marketed as part of the original series (and the previous characters make cameos in the story), this novel can stand on its own and is undoubtedly destined to have a sequel. Reviewer: Jacqueline Bach

School Library Journal

Gr 7-10

Incoming freshmen at the same high school that the original sisterhood attended, Ama, Jo, and Polly are learning that falling out of friendship is an unfortunate part of growing up. They're spending the summer apart-uprooted-dealing with divorce, unmet expectations, and, of course, boys. Fans of Brashares will likely be thrilled to get their hands on Willows , yet the story falls short of offering the chick-lit genre anything new. Undoubtedly, though, readers will become involved with the girls as they grow their separate ways, ultimately realizing that the roots of their friendship have never really come undone. The sweet (near sappy) novel will find a place on the to-read list of many tweens and teens.-Emily Chornomaz, Brooklyn Public Library, NY

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)

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