The Sleepover Friends: How Books and Friends Are Everything When You Are 10

An ode, a memoir, an essay, a memory

Growing up my friend Lauren and I had a tradition. We were the only ones to ever actually sleep over at each others homes. We both had a bit of dysfunction in our lives, drunken fathers, and such. And we were similar in other ways as well.

I remember how at Lauren’s house we would bump down her carpeted stairs in our sleeping bags, laughing. And at my house we would play Barbies in the room I shared with my sister.

And I remember how we would read our favorite series together — what nostalgia! I have managed to keep them all, to add to the collection when I find ones that had gone missing, or that I had checked out from the library.

And no, we were not too big on the Babysitters Club. I mean, they were great and it was the early 1990s, so of course. But our books, our special books, were the lesser known the Sleepover Friends series.

We devoured them. A group of four friends who took turns going to each others homes every Friday night after school for a sleepover. Hair was dyed, snacks were eaten, boys were discussed!

And of course every friend was different, — no, not in terms of race or class, it was 1990, am I right? But one girl loved fashion and art, one loved sports, one loved school, etc. and so on. I actually sort of forget what all of the interests and episodes and antics were about, but I remember the feeling of reading these books.

And the feeling of having someone special to share them with.

Lauren and I were both going through a lot as girls in the 1990s. It was a crappy time, to be honest, in so many ways. Personal family issues aside, the decade was just as hopped up on sexism and misogyny as any decade prior — music videos, song lyrics, the behaviors of the men and boys in our lives. Our small town was riddled with classism and classist remarks flew like paper-planes across the classroom every day — someone got their clothing from K-Mart or Goodwill and they were bullied all day, for example. And racism was the air we breathed as a small town in Michigan — segregation was visible and for whites, seen as normal and fine.

We did not always register all of this, but we could feel it. And somehow we knew we were different. We had each other and we rose above a lot of the drama and noise that was being ten, eleven, twelve, and having little to no navigational tools when it came to dealing with cliques, dealing with boys, dealing with dreams and aspirations.

We learned from our Sleepover Friends about how to talk to friends about problems. We learned about how to be responsible for our actions. We learned about how to cut toxic people and bullies out of our lives. And we learned about how to make great sleepover nachos.

Books have always been there for me. Simply always. When nothing else was, when no one else was, when I did not know what I needed or what I was up against. I had books to go to and to help me find my identity, heal my spirit, and focus my direction.

In my opinion all teen girls, all pre-teen girls, can get by with a good book series and a good true best friend.

My daughter has this, I believe. It is hard to see her inner-world sometimes. The landscape is different. There’s YouTube, Apps, Games, FaceTime. But I know and I have seen her sharing her favorite book series, Dork Diaries, with her two best friends.

Just as Lauren and I felt we were the Sleepover Friends, — the bonus two, the extra two, I know my daughter and her friends identify with and feel one with the Dork and her diaries.

This is what books do for us, in brief, in short. They include us, they reflect us and they give as a group to hang with, a home to experience safety in, a community to belong to. Now if I could only get my daughter to think the Sleepover Friends weren’t “boring!”

Jenny Justice is a mom, Sociology instructor, and writer. You can follow her on Medium and at Jenny Justice, Writer. She has been recognized as a Top Writer on Medium in Poetry, Parenting, Reading, Education, Books, Racism, and Climate Change, so far.