3 Willows the sisterhood grows by Ann Brashares

3 Willows the sisterhood grows by Ann Brashares fits into the juvenile fiction genre and was published in 2009. It is recommended for readers ages 12 and up.

3 Willows is a companion novel to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants where the pants girls are something akin to an urban legend and have long since moved on with their lives. 3 Willows follows the summers of three girls in their early teens. Polly, Jo, and Ama. Polly had always been a bit of an outsider and marched to the beat of her own drummer. Through some crazy whim she decides that she wants to be a model and somehow convinces her artist mother to let her go to a summer modeling camp. Jo spends her summer at her family’s beach house with her mom. Her parents are having a “trial separation” basically making official what they’d been doing since her brother’s death. To keep her mind off of it Jo gets a job as a bus girl at a local restaurant and surprises herself with her newfound popularity and a fun summer with an unexpected boy. Ama signed up for a summer academic camp to further her studies and add to her future college applications. In a random twist of fate and paperwork she ends up in Wyoming at an outdoor camp the only black girl in the bunch she is convinced they did it to make the camp look more diverse. While struggling with the outdoor and having her mind set on having a bad summer Ama surprises herself by actually learning something and enjoying herself in the end, although it took getting lost and a call home to make up her mind. Meanwhile Jo comes to grips with her parent’s separation and learns, through a series of frustrating experiences, who her true friends are and what they’d do for her. Polly discovers the sad truth about her mother and that she is not model material, which is a good thing. Together they find new ways to be happy and set reachable goals. 3 Willows is a great book that teaches about how to find true happiness and what really matters in life. Brashares manages to address big topics while maintaining a fun reading experience making this a great book for any girl.

Other reviews available:

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares