The Sleepover Club is a children's book series; the initial concept and the first five books were by Rose Impey, whilst other authors collaborated on the rest of the series.
Set in Cuddington, near Leicester, the story centers around five ten (and eventually eleven) year old girls; Francesca "Frankie" Thomas, Laura "Kenny" McKenzie, Felicity "Fliss" Sidebotham, Lyndsey "Lyndz" Collins, and Rosie Cartwright. They consider themselves the best of friends and form a club entitled "The Sleepover Club," involving their sleeping around one another's houses on a regular basis.
An Australian TV series was produced following the same basic plotline, with a few changes in characters/backstories.
Not to be mistaken for the 1980s American children's book series, Sleepover Friends.
Provides examples of:
- Berserk Button: Most of the narrating girls will warn the reader never to call Kenny by her given name, Laura, if you value your own life.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Molly, Kenny's older sister.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Frequent, especially in earlier books.
- Cheerful Child: Most of the girls are pretty happy the vast majority of the time; the few vaguely serious problems that do arise are usually resolved quickly, or the girls at least find some acceptance of them.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Kenny's oldest sister, Emma, isn't mentioned again after the first few books.
- Cool Big Sis: Emma to Molly and Kenny; Tiffany to Rosie.
- Extruded Book Product: The original book series ran only seven years (1997-2003) yet produced no less than 54 titles.
Of these, series creator Rose Impey only penned the first five, with the rest of the series being written by various authors including Narinder Dhami, Fiona Cummings and Sue Mongredien. - Flanderization: Kenny's competitivity, Fliss' vanity and cowardice and Lyndz's horse obsession all suffer this to an extent in the books post Rose Impey's original five.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Kenny and Frankie. Borders on a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship at times, especially since in the one book where the two have an argument they treat it very much as a lovers' quarrel and Frankie seems very jealous over Kenny's crush on her ski instructor.
- Introductory Opening Credits: In the TV series, the opening shows each of the main characters with just their first names beside them. Unlike most similar live-action shows, the actors's names are only listed in the closing titles.
- Kick the Dog: A core trait of the M&Ms. While they are archenemies of the club and are expected to say and do mean things to them, they also pick on children younger than them in some books, and even insulted Rosie's brother for having cerebral palsy (pushing a Berserk Button for Rosie).
- One-Steve Limit: A notable exception with Kenny's oldest sister and an enemy of the main five girls, who are both called Emma.
- Race Lift: When the books were adapted for TV, Kenny and Lyndz swapped ethnicities.
- Running Gag: Lyndz's hiccups tend to crop up at least once in each book.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Kenny and Molly.
