Tuesday Top Five: Into The Woods
Jul. 23rd, 2024 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nevannaIn Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of 80s and 90s Teen Fiction, Gabrielle Moss lays out the formula of the summer camp book: “the kid who’s resistant to going to camp is initially fearful, then finally makes some friends, gets out of their social comfort zone, and grows as a person thanks to good times had in the Crafts Hut.” Since we’re right in the middle of camp season, I wanted to share some of my favorite books with that setting: two nostalgic favorites and three YA titles that I discovered as an adult.
1. Yours Till Niagara Falls, Abby by Jane O’Connor (1979): When her best friend is injured, Abby finds herself reluctantly attending Camp Pinecrest without Merle by her side. Of the five titles on my list, this is the one that follows Moss’s outline the most closely, and also the one I’ve read the least recently. I do remember that it was partially told in letters, and also that Abby was obsessed with monster movies, which inspired a skit that she performed with her bunk.
2. There’s A Bat In Bunk Five by Paula Danziger (1980): In this sequel to The Cat Ate My Gymsuit (though it can stand alone), Marcy is a counselor-in-training at an arts camp founded by her former English teacher, where she has to balance a new romantic relationship and her responsibilities to her campers, one of whom makes herself very, very difficult to like or connect with. (Some of that camper’s behavior toward her bunkmates is inexcusably racist, which is called out within the text.)
Danziger, who died in 2004, had written some of my favorite YA books, and was skilled at blending humor (reflected in the titles: It’s An Aardvark-Eat-Turtle World, Can You Sue Your Parents For Malpractice? and so on) with stories of dysfunctional families, without making us feel like we were reading Serious Issue books. Bunk Five, which I actually did reread before writing this post, is no exception. However, I am now much more critical of the fact that Marcy, whose larger body was a source of angst in Gymsuit, has become thin in the sequel, and I like to think that a similar book written today would allow a fat teenage heroine to find romance and self-fulfillment during the summer.
3. Camp by L.C. Rosen (2020): Returning to his beloved Camp Outland, a summer refuge for queer teens, flamboyant theater kid Randy decides to reinvent himself as his crush’s masculine ideal, but has to decide between staying true to himself and holding onto the boy of his dreams. Romance plots based on deception and lack of communication aren’t always my favorite, but as far as I’m concerned, Rosen’s lovable, flawed characters make the story worth reading. As someone who’s tried theater but never really found a home there - though many of my friends have - I also really enjoyed the story thread in which the summer musical comes together.
4. The Counselors by Jessica Goodman (2020): Eighteen-year-old Goldie is looking forward to another summer as a lifeguard at Camp Alpine Lake, even though she’s chosen not to tell even her closest friends about the traumatic turn of events that changed her life over the winter. (It should be noted, for the wary, that said events do not involve sexual abuse or assault.) But when the body of a local teenager turns up in the lake, she discovers that she’s not the only one with something to hide. That description sounds like the beginning of a summer camp slasher, but that’s not the story that Goodman is telling: although a well-constructed murder mystery drives the plot, the novel’s real strength lies in the relationships between the teenage girls and the examination of the class issues that shape the camp and the surrounding community.
5. The Honeys by Ryan La Sala (2022): After their twin sister’s sudden and horrific death, Mars takes her place at the exclusive residential summer program that she loved, bonds with her closest friends, and discovers the role that they, and the camp itself, played in her final days. This is the only title on my list with supernatural elements, and I love how La Sala integrates the horror with the outwardly idyllic setting and the themes of grief, gender, and generational expectations. I’m almost tempted to say that this book does for bees what Revolutionary Girl Utena did for roses.
Do you have a favorite summer camp story? It doesn’t have to be a book!
1. Yours Till Niagara Falls, Abby by Jane O’Connor (1979): When her best friend is injured, Abby finds herself reluctantly attending Camp Pinecrest without Merle by her side. Of the five titles on my list, this is the one that follows Moss’s outline the most closely, and also the one I’ve read the least recently. I do remember that it was partially told in letters, and also that Abby was obsessed with monster movies, which inspired a skit that she performed with her bunk.
2. There’s A Bat In Bunk Five by Paula Danziger (1980): In this sequel to The Cat Ate My Gymsuit (though it can stand alone), Marcy is a counselor-in-training at an arts camp founded by her former English teacher, where she has to balance a new romantic relationship and her responsibilities to her campers, one of whom makes herself very, very difficult to like or connect with. (Some of that camper’s behavior toward her bunkmates is inexcusably racist, which is called out within the text.)
Danziger, who died in 2004, had written some of my favorite YA books, and was skilled at blending humor (reflected in the titles: It’s An Aardvark-Eat-Turtle World, Can You Sue Your Parents For Malpractice? and so on) with stories of dysfunctional families, without making us feel like we were reading Serious Issue books. Bunk Five, which I actually did reread before writing this post, is no exception. However, I am now much more critical of the fact that Marcy, whose larger body was a source of angst in Gymsuit, has become thin in the sequel, and I like to think that a similar book written today would allow a fat teenage heroine to find romance and self-fulfillment during the summer.
3. Camp by L.C. Rosen (2020): Returning to his beloved Camp Outland, a summer refuge for queer teens, flamboyant theater kid Randy decides to reinvent himself as his crush’s masculine ideal, but has to decide between staying true to himself and holding onto the boy of his dreams. Romance plots based on deception and lack of communication aren’t always my favorite, but as far as I’m concerned, Rosen’s lovable, flawed characters make the story worth reading. As someone who’s tried theater but never really found a home there - though many of my friends have - I also really enjoyed the story thread in which the summer musical comes together.
4. The Counselors by Jessica Goodman (2020): Eighteen-year-old Goldie is looking forward to another summer as a lifeguard at Camp Alpine Lake, even though she’s chosen not to tell even her closest friends about the traumatic turn of events that changed her life over the winter. (It should be noted, for the wary, that said events do not involve sexual abuse or assault.) But when the body of a local teenager turns up in the lake, she discovers that she’s not the only one with something to hide. That description sounds like the beginning of a summer camp slasher, but that’s not the story that Goodman is telling: although a well-constructed murder mystery drives the plot, the novel’s real strength lies in the relationships between the teenage girls and the examination of the class issues that shape the camp and the surrounding community.
5. The Honeys by Ryan La Sala (2022): After their twin sister’s sudden and horrific death, Mars takes her place at the exclusive residential summer program that she loved, bonds with her closest friends, and discovers the role that they, and the camp itself, played in her final days. This is the only title on my list with supernatural elements, and I love how La Sala integrates the horror with the outwardly idyllic setting and the themes of grief, gender, and generational expectations. I’m almost tempted to say that this book does for bees what Revolutionary Girl Utena did for roses.
Do you have a favorite summer camp story? It doesn’t have to be a book!
no subject
Date: 2024-07-24 05:05 pm (UTC)Brain Camp was fun! (Though a comic.)
no subject
Date: 2024-07-27 11:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-29 12:58 pm (UTC)Two favorite summer camp films of mine are Wet Hot American Summer and The Addams Family Values (camp is only part of the story, I know, but a significant one!).
no subject
Date: 2024-07-30 07:14 pm (UTC)Addams Family Values probably deserves an honorable mention because the summer camp storyline is just that iconic.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-08 07:52 pm (UTC)EXACTLY.
I thought of this post again because I just started a book last night called That Summer Feeling by Bridget Morrissey, which has the wonderful premise of a woman in her 30s going to spend a week at a sleepaway camp for adults where she runs into a man from her past, only to fall for his sister instead. I'm not far in at all, but I really like the prologue and first chapter. I'll let you know how it is after I've finished!