ABSTRACT
In 2001, Random House’s children’s division, Delacorte Press, published Ann Brashares’s young adult novel Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, featuring the lives and friendship of four teenagers: Bridget/Bee, Carmen, Lena, and Tibby. 1 The novel hit the New York Times Bestsellers List and quickly became a topic of media, internet, classroom, and many adults’, teens’, and tweens’ discussions. Three more instant bestsellers followed (2003, 2005, 2007), as well as audio books and two films, the first (Ken Kwapis, 2005) based on book one and the second (Sanaa Hamri, 2008) based on books two, three, and four. 2 As a whole, the series spent 137 weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers List, 3 and the two films grossed approximately $86 million worldwide (excluding DVD sales). 4 Brashares’s most recent novel, Three Willows (2009), is not part of the traveling pants series, but it is set in the same location and provides snippets of information about Tibby’s and Lena’s developing lives. 5 In addition, one can follow each of the characters on myspace.com, 6 join a Sisterhood Yahoo! group, 7 follow blogs about both Sisterhood and Brashares, 8 and/or browse Sisterhood on YouTube. In short, Sisterhood is much more than four books and two films; it is arguably a media “universe,” similar to although not as extensive as the Buffyverse, the Star Trek phenomenon, or the Potterverse. 9 Like these other worldwide phenomena, Sisterhood is sustained by fans, critics, marketers, and the author, all of whom continue to consume, discuss, and/or extend the lives of the characters in Sisterhood in its many forms.
