Friendship Book, Diary, or Journal: What Works for Ages 10 to 14?

The friendship book

Every friend gets a page: name, favorite color, favorite food, a photo. At six, that's a treasure. At twelve, it feels babyish, and the questions don't fit anymore. Friendship books for teens are rare because the format is too rigid: it asks, but it doesn't listen.

The diary

Blank pages with a date. A girl who loves to write doesn't need anything else. But most girls between 10 and 14 don't enjoy staring at a blank page; they enjoy writing once someone asks the first question. Diaries with a lock are made for nine-year-olds, not fourteen-year-olds.

The fill-in memory book

It combines both and drops the pressure. Questions that fit a girl's life, lists, profiles of her friends, letters, spaces to stick in photos and little finds, a calendar with one word per day, plus short stories about two characters who are a little older than the reader. There's no set order. Some pages take two minutes, others last the whole season. And she writes in the year herself, so the book fits any fall.

How to spot a good one

• Every page says what to do, without a lecture.
• It talks to the girl, not to the person buying it.
• The characters look 15, not 8.
• No body or beauty topics, no comparisons, no “do this every day.”
• There's room for things that don't have a photo.

And the printable journal?

For girls who want to start right away or would rather write on a tablet. GOLDEN MOMENTS has 20 pages you can print as often as you like. No book, no binding, no pressure.