Girls of a certain age do this friend ranking thing. They have “best friends,” and they get jealous if their best friend spends too much time with another girl. They write notes that ask “am I still your BFF?” and try to figure out body language and sub-texts to conversations, and it’s all kind of sticky-icky sometimes. For most girls it’s all part of growing up.

I have noticed that boys don’t mess with this kind of relationship/friendship stuff. Karate Kid (age 12) has nineteen or twenty best buds; he plays with all of them, hangs out, generally just enjoys whoever is around. He always has. I can’t imagine him or any of his friends getting mad because Joe is spending more time with Pete than with with Karate Kid. KK would just figure that they were doing something, so he’d find someone else to hang with for a while. Or he would go do something with the group, including Joe and Pete. BFF is just not an issue with most boys.

Why this division in behavior occurs, whether it’s nature or nurture, I’ll leave to the psychologists and sociologists. At any rate, Jemma Hartman is a girl book about girls being girls at a girls’ summer camp. I thought it was well written, especially from a psychological point of view, and that the author, Brenda Ferber, captured the voice of an eleven year old girl in a friendship crisis quite well.

I gave the book to Betsy-Bee, who has experienced her own friendship crises, and she is enjoying it. She did say that she thought Jemma’s erstwhile BFF was “mean.” I think when BB finishes the book we’ll talk about the difference between actual “meanness” and changes that happen in friendships as girls become older and as they, possibly, grow apart. It’s a hard lesson to learn.

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This book is also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own.