Summer Vacation Books About Summer Vacation

The hot summer months provide many reading opportunities. Make your summer reading more summery with books about . . . yes, you guessed it, . . . summer vacation! Here are middle grade chapter books about camp, vacation, friendships, trips, and other summer time adventures. Enjoy!

​Camp Rolling Hills by Stacy Davidowitz (ages 8 – 12)
Summer camp is Stephanie’s (Slimey as she’s called at camp) favorite time of year. This year is a little different with changes in friendships, boy crushes and kisses, and pranks on other cabins.

The rest of the list here!

Publisher's Weekly:
Bunk Reads: Promoting Book Discovery at Summer Camp
By Judith Rosen 
Jun 07, 2016

Last summer, when Kirsten Cappy, founder of the marketing firm Curious City in Portland, Maine, was working with Ammi-Joan Paquette, author of Princess Juniper of the Hourglass (Philomel) and a literary agent, Cappy wished that she could get the book into every summer camp.

After brainstorming with Paquette’s agent, Erin Murphy with Erin Murphy Literary Agency, the two came up with a way to do just that: by creating a book discovery program for kids at summer camp, Bunk Reads. And they will begin testing their idea in two weeks through a pilot program with 11 Maine summer camps, which will place them in their libraries or rec rooms.

Bunk Reads is providing 55 books by 39 authors (all but one agented by Murphy). Each of the authors paid a $50 fee and provided a dozen books for Cappy and Murphy to distribute. A little less than half the selected titles, picture books through middle grade, have main characters that are non-white. A third have female protagonists. The titles are published by houses ranging from Algonquin Young Readers and Charlesbridge to Scholastic and Viking.

In addition to introducing kids to new books this summer, Cappy and Murphy also want to be able to track what the kids liked and didn’t like. As part of Bunk Reads, children are asked to read a book and review it (using the hashtag #BunkReads). They will then be entered into a contest to win a box of books, which will ship in December.

Camp administrators see Cappy and Murphy’s idea as a win-win. Although camps focus on children’s social and emotional growth, diversity, and appreciating nature, many are also being pressured by parents to help stem the “summer slide.” “I thought it was a fantastic opportunity for campers and counselors,” Jason Gray, assistant director of Camp Nashoba North in Raymond, Maine, said. A sports teacher in Australia, Gray plans to take the idea back home to rugby camp to encourage kids there to read.

Camp administrators like Mark Lipof, director and co-owner of Camp Micah in Bridgton, Maine, persuaded Cappy and Murphy that it’s possible to find a way for kids to review books, even though his camp and most others are technology-free. Staff at Camp Micah will type up kids’ handwritten reviews and post them on their camp blog. Kids can also use one of the postcards that are inserted in each book to write down their thoughts and send them home. They or their parents can type them up when they get back.

Among the administrators concerns were that none of the books contain sexual situations. Lipof also didn’t want the kids to see Bunk Reads as schoolwork. At the same time, he asked that Bunk Reads include summer reading books that parents want their kids to read at camp. “We’re very hopeful that kids are going to love [Bunk Reads],” Lipof said. He added that two types of kids come to camp – those who read and those who don’t. He’d like to use the program to get the kids who don’t read to pick up a book.

Based on the feedback that the camps and campers provide, Cappy and Murphy will put together a proposal to scale the project. But for Cappy, the Bunk Reads has other possibilities beyond summer camp. “As an industry,” she said, “we do an amazing job of creating good stories. The right book turns kids into readers. We need projects that don’t just rely on booksellers and librarians for discovery. We need more partners.”

Find out more at www.bunkreads.com

At the Barnes & Noble in Clifton, NJ, I met Paul Czajak. SO COOL. Did you know that he was a chemist before he became an author six years ago?! 

The staff at B&N in Woodland Park is THE SWEETEST. One of the booksellers' moms made me a lollypop bouquet. I repeat: A LOLLYPOP BOUQUET. My grandma's friends crashed the party, too! It was a blast facilitating YA trivia, chatting, signing, and all that jazz:)

Camp Rolling Hills: Book One
Posted on May 7, 2016 in BR Library

By Stacy Davidowitz
Publisher: Amulet Paperbacks
Pages: 240
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years

ABOUT
A hilarious and heartfelt series about the particular magic of summer camp—a place where reinvention is possible and friends are like family—from a sparkling debut talent.
Finally, it’s summer! Stephanie—aka Slimey—has been counting the days until she can return to her favorite place in the entire world, Camp Rolling Hills. And this year she’s especially happy to be back—she’ll have eight blissful weeks away from home, where life has been decidedly rocky.
New kid Bobby, on the other hand, is pretty sure he’s in for the worst summer of his life. He does not understand his weirdo cabinmates, the group singing, and the unfortunate nicknames (including his: Smelly). But he does understand Slimey, and the two soon fall in crush. This summer might not be so bad after all! But then a fight sets off an epic, campwide, girls-versus-boys prank war. Bunks are raided! Boxer shorts are stolen! And it’s up to Slimey and Smelly to keep the peace.

“Camp Rolling Hills is funny and sweet. It brought me back to those amazing summer camp summers and my very first taste of young adulthood.” —Michael Showalter, co-writer of Wet Hot American Summer

REVIEWS
“Stephanie (aka Slimey) and Bobby (aka Smelly) learn a lot about relationships in this quirky debut novel, first in the Camp Rolling Hills series. Twelve-year-old Slimey has been a camper at Rolling Hills every summer for as long as she can remember, and she loves almost everything about it. Smelly feels like he has been thrown to the wolves, sent to camp so his parents can work out their marital problems. Moreover, he has to keep “Bizarro Bobby” (“the name he’d given to his anxiety, after Superman’s Bizarro”) in check, hidden from his welcoming and eclectic bunkmates. Slimey senses a connection with Smelly when they talk, especially after she discusses her father’s recent death. When an epic miscommunication complicates the tenuous relationships Smelly has formed, he must rise to the challenge in order to make things right. Spot-on combinations of sweet adolescent romance and teenage angst round out an engaging summer read with plenty of energy and originality to keep kids tuning in for more. Available simultaneously: Crossing Over.”
Ages 8–12. Agent: Erica Rand Silverman, Sterling Lord Literistic. (May)
—Publishers Weekly
​
“Readers who love camp should feel comfortable with the lively fun, but even noncampers will relate to the theme of friendships renewed. The dollop of romance is the extra marshmallowy goodness cementing the story together. For those looking for a new series to explore, this will more than suffice.”
--Booklist

Book Review: Camp Rolling Hills by Stacy Davidowitz

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Cindy Hudson

​Slimey loves everything about Camp Rolling Hills, and she can’t wait to spend her summer there. Robert, aka, Smelly, is a first timer, and he would surely be at baseball camp if his parents hadn’t made him go to Rolling Hills while they try to patch up their marriage.

When Slimey and Smelly meet, they are instantly attracted. Soon, they are confiding things in each other they feel they can’t tell anyone else. But after a misunderstanding at the camp dance, the boys’ cabin and the girls’ cabin trade pranks in an escalating war. It may be up to Slimey and Smelly to patch things up with the two groups.
Camp Rolling Hills by Stacy Davidowitz is a great summer read for children aged 8 to 11, whether they attend summer camp or not. Davidowitz captures the mix of emotions that can arise when kids get to spend weeks at a time with each other in a place where they may experience camaraderie, acceptance, rejection, loneliness, and more.

At times laugh-out-loud funny, this opener in the series sets the stage for stories about a range of campers with different personalities, which I expect will unfold with more books. It’s a fun world to enter. Letters home from several characters helps readers get to know them and their quirks, as does journal entries, sketches, and other bits of information.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.