The books in the series:
- Slug Days (2017)
- Penguin Days (2019)
- Duck Days (2020)
Slug Days Stories contains examples of:
- Affection-Hating Kid: In Penguin Days, Lauren's Auntie Joss kisses her cheek. Lauren wipes it off and says, "Yuck." Later, she gets grossed out when Joss and Charlie kiss during their wedding.
- Alliterative Family: Lauren's baby sister is named Lexi.
- Character Tics: Lauren's mom huffs like a bear when she's annoyed.
- First Friend: Lauren is lonely because all her attempts to make friends end with the other kids annoyed at her. But at the end of Slug Days, Irma, a New Transfer Student from Sweden, tells Lauren that she's scared to ride the bus at the end of the day because she has no one to sit with. Lauren offers to sit with her, and Irma says, "I would like that." Lauren is so happy to have a friend that her slug day turns into a butterfly day.
- Forced into Their Sunday Best: In Penguin Days, Lauren is going to be a flower girl at Joss and Charlie's wedding, but she hates the scratchy purple dress Joss picked out. Luckily for her, she vomits on the dress and then falls into the cattle pen while wearing it, so her mom has to take her shopping for another one. She picks out a new purple dress that doesn't match the other flower girls' dresses but is much softer and more comfortable.
- Handshake Refusal: In Penguin Days, Lauren meets her cousins Sophia, Zoe, and Kevin. She sticks out her hand, like her therapist Ms. Lagorio taught her to, but they don't take it. She guesses that they don't have a therapist to teach them social skills.
- New Friend Envy: In Duck Days, Lauren learns that Irma has another friend named Jonas. Lauren is worried that Irma won't want to be friends with her anymore. Her fears are assuaged when Jonas asks her, "Isn't Irma your best friend? You're all she ever talks about." Jonas turns out to be a good friend who helps Lauren learn to ride her bike around an obstacle course.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Lauren doesn't understand that when she stands too close to the other kids, hugs them, or touches their hair, it makes them uncomfortable. In Slug Days, Ms. Lagorio tells her to stand at arms' length from her classmates, but when she gets back to class she tries to measure her distance from her classmate Dan by stretching her arms out and touching him, which irritates him as much as ever.
- Le Parkour: Kevin does parkour. He practices by running up the side of a tree and jumping off it.
- Performance Anxiety: The day before Joss and Charlie's wedding in Penguin Days, Lauren participates in a rehearsal in front of rows of empty chairs. But on the day of the actual wedding, she finds that the chairs are now full of people she doesn't know. Lauren freezes up, afraid she'll walk or scatter flowers wrong and everyone will laugh at her. Her cousins gather around to offer encouragement. Kevin tells her to picture the audience in their underwear. Lauren doesn't want to picture that, so Kevin tells her to imagine they're penguins instead. That helps her calm down enough to start walking down the aisle.
- Put Off Their Food: In Penguin Days, Lauren shares facts about penguins with her cousins, including the fact that penguins feed their babies by regurgitating into their mouths. Zoe says, "That's gross, Lauren," and pushes her food away.
- Screaming Plane Baby: In Penguin Days, Lauren's family travels to Lincoln, North Dakota to visit relatives. The last time they went, Lauren was three and spent the whole flight screaming, so this time her parents decide to drive instead.
- Secret Handshake: Lauren and the usual bus driver, Mike, have a secret handshake. It's part of her routine, and as soon as Lauren sees that there's a new bus driver, she knows it's going to be a slug day.
- Security Blanket: Lauren has a squishy ball her dad gave her. She squishes it and bounces it against her hand to help her cool down in class.
- Skipping School: Attempted by Lauren in Slug Days. Even before school starts she can tell it's going to be a slug day, so she crawls under a pine tree in front of the school, hoping she can stay there all day. Mrs. Kelly finds her anyway and makes her go to class. She arrives late and misses out on reading.
- Teachers Out of School: In Duck Days, Lauren is surprised to learn that her teacher, Ms. Allen, rides a mountain bike. She thinks that teachers are supposed to drink coffee in the staff room and put stickers on worksheets.
- Title Drop: Slug days are what Lauren calls days when everything goes wrong and she feels slow and slimy.
- Unwillingly Girly Tomboy: In Penguin Days, Sophia and Zoe wear purple flower girl dresses picked out by Joss. Sophia thinks her dress is pretty and likes twirling around in it, but Zoe complains that it has too many frills and acts unhappy while she's wearing it.
