As a European reader, summer camps always seem typically American to me. Putting together a big group of teenagers - or, as here , pre-teens, as the girls are aged ten - in tents with little supervision and a lot of time to get into trouble seems like an accident waiting to happen, and that's talking as a teacher ! I can see that giving children a little bit more responsibility and control can be a great way of turning them into more aware and responsible human beings though. Both of these aspects are developed in The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore.
The story begins with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets and songs by the fireside, but there are also the first notions of jealousy and kids trying to be top dog, as you'd expect. Split up into small groups, they all head off to a nearby island for an overnight kayaking and camping trip. Each group has one adult and the five girls that the book follows - Nita, Dina, Siobhan, Andee and Isabel - find themselves led by the sprightly but elderly Jan, who pushes them further than the organised camping spot. When they awake next morning and find that she has died, they realise that nobody knows where they are and set off to try to find a way back home.
The book slowly reveals how the girls managed to get back home, while also looking ahead to see how they developed into adults. There are happy endings and sad endings, but throughout them all, echoes of Camp Forevermore can be detected.
The tale of the girls on the island reminded me slightly of Lord of the Flies, with dominant personalities struggling to take control and others just going along with the status quo. I kept forgetting how young the girls were - for some reason, in my mind, they kept morphing into disgruntled teens. It was interesting to follow them in their later years, and see how such a traumatic event could reverberate through their lifetimes in such a variety of ways. It's an interesting read that I raced through in just a couple of days.
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £8.99 (paperback) / £4.99 (Ebook)
- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Legend Press (15 Feb. 2019)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1789550165
- ISBN-13: 978-1789550160
Disclosure : I received a review copy of the book.
I know what you mean about camps, they do seem a bit American. This is an interesting twist though, sounds like a good read.
ReplyDeleteI like the sound of this book, it's one to add to my neverending list!
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