Books about a group of girls

March 7, 2013 10:48 AM

Similar to this recent question, I'm looking for books about preteen-teenage girls in a single-sex environment. Boarding schools, private schools, summer camps, etc.

Can be a classic book like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to more contemporary like Commencement. More on the side of realism, though quirky and oddball is fine. Something like A Great and Terrible Beauty is about as supernatural/fantastical as I want to go. Guys can be minor characters, but what I'm really looking for is good writing about relationships/interactions within a group of girls.

posted by book 'em dano to writing & language (22 answers total)

Buddies was one of my favorites as a teen; quirky and oddball should be satisfied IIRC.
posted by mibo at 10:56 AM on March 7

Prep by Curtis Sittenfield. A fictionalized memoir about the author's time in a ritzy boarding school.
posted by pintapicasso at 11:00 AM on March 7 [2 favorites]

Enid Blyton's books? The Twins at St Clare's series and the Malory Towers books both feature girls in English boarding schools, from around age 11-12.
posted by pikeandshield at 11:01 AM on March 7 [2 favorites]

Enid Blyton has a couple series -- Malory Towers and St. Clare's.

There's the Chalet School series.

When I was about 7 or 8, I went through a ton of these set in various places. Ballet students at Sadlers Wells was one I remember. There was one about girls who were at a horse riding camp or school. My favorite at the time was one in a boarding school, too, that I have visceral memories of but can't remember any of the characters names or what the books were called.

There are a couple of lists on Good Reads in this vein that might help, as well.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:03 AM on March 7 [4 favorites]

Among Others by Jo Walton.
posted by eugenen at 11:10 AM on March 7

You'd like Skim.
posted by to recite so charmingly at 11:31 AM on March 7 [1 favorite]

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood and Like Mandarin by metafilter's own Kirsten Hubbard are my favorite books about female friendships.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:46 AM on March 7

Found the series I loved most that I couldn't remember: The Girls of Canby Hall.

I am not claiming these are good, btw. My 8 year old self loved them, but that means very little.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:47 AM on March 7 [2 favorites]

Little Women!!
posted by spunweb at 12:25 PM on March 7 [1 favorite]

The Babysitters' Club

I'd also recommend The Secrets of the Unicorn Queen series, but there's interdimensional travel in that one, so it might be too SF/F.
posted by spunweb at 12:28 PM on March 7 [1 favorite]

What Katy Did at School, by Susan Coolidge
When Patty Went to College, by Jean Webster
Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall, by Alice B. Emerson

I don't know if these are older than what you were looking for, but one of the pluses is that they're are all old enough to be in the public domain, so the free e-texts are available through Project Gutenberg.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:01 PM on March 7

Ballet students at Sadlers Wells was one I remember.

This doesn't exactly describe, but sounds like, one of Noel Streatfeild's books.
posted by clavicle at 1:05 PM on March 7

I suspect the ballet at Sadlers Wells ones are by Lorna Hill. The Trebizon series and the Antonia Forest books are also boarding school books.
posted by plonkee at 1:32 PM on March 7

Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers by Cynthia Voigt

Laura's Luck by Marilyn Sachs
posted by Kriesa at 1:40 PM on March 7

Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer

Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan might be too gothic horror fantasy for you, but I loved it when I was a kid.
posted by mogget at 2:17 PM on March 7 [1 favorite]

A Little Princess
posted by thesnowyslaps at 2:34 PM on March 7

Frost in May by Antonia White
posted by thetortoise at 2:56 PM on March 7

Thank you so much! There are some really great suggestions here that I never would have found on my own.
posted by book 'em dano at 4:18 PM on March 7

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter is ridiculous fun (it's an all girl's spy school).

The Lark in the Morn is more historical, set at all girl Quaker school. Also historical is Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild.

And for non boarding school books that focus a lot on girl friendships, I'd recommend The Exiles by Hilary McKay, All-of-a-kind Family by Sydney Taylor, and the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Lovelace.
posted by Margalo Epps at 6:31 PM on March 7

I loved Caroline B Cooney's Among Friends as a teen. Not single-sex, but very much about girl friendships, and what happens if one of you is apparently destined to do better than everyone else.
posted by mippy at 5:35 AM on March 8

Frank Wedekind's Mine-haha was the basis for the film L'ecole which is a dreamy surreal depiction of girls at a mysterious boarding school.
posted by ifjuly at 12:29 PM on March 8

Still making my way through all these great suggestions. One more book I found is The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt which has all sorts of great ephemera from Vassar when it was still a women's college in the 1920s.
posted by book 'em dano at 2:34 PM on April 8