Camp (Book) Crushes
Pack up your marshmallows, graham crackers, and favorite books, kids, because we’re going to CAMP LBYR! (Sigh, if only that was a real thing… we’d make friendship bracelets, eat s’mores, stalk (I mean… observe) our crushes, and read read read!)
Summer camp is an overall magical place where memories are made. For example, once I was hiking with two friends (all of us former Girl Scouts) and we felt very confident that we could follow the trails of upstate New York. But soon the sun began to set, and our internal compasses were not as strong as we thought they were. We soon descended into panic, thinking we were going to get eaten by bears. We called 911 and were rescued by two wonderful and exasperated park rangers who we took selfies with. AH, MEMORIES!!!
So after your long days of canoeing, hiking, rehearsing, (and hopefully not getting lost) snuggle up in your tent or cabin with one of these cozy reads!
Ever since sixth grade, Ashton Price and their best friend and enduring crush, Ivy Santos, have spent their summers together at theater camp. Now it’s their last year before they part ways for high school, and Ash is determined to end it on a high note!
With Ash as stage manager and Ivy the lead in this year’s musical, this summer’s shaping up to be everything the two could have hoped for. Maybe Ash will even work up the courage to ask Ivy out! But between Ivy rehearsing long hours with her colead and Ash throwing themself into an ambitious stage production, will they end up drifting apart instead?
As summer wanes and September looms, Ash and Ivy’s friendship will change forever, one way or another.
Magic Olive Poindexter has big shoes to fill. Her mother was a professional cheerleader, her father is a retired NBA legend, her big sister is the new face of the oh-so-glamorous Laker Girls, and her grandmother was the first black cheerleader ever on Valentine Middle School’s HoneyBee cheer squad. Magic wants nothing more than to follow in their footsteps. But first, she has to survive Planet Pom Poms, the summer cheer camp where she’ll audition for a spot on the HoneyBee squad. But with zero athletic ability and a group of mean girls who have her number, Tragic Magic is a long way from becoming the toe-touching cheerleader heroine she dreams of being.
Things start to look up when her best friend Cappie joins her at camp—until Cappie gets bitten by the popularity bug, that is. To make matters worse, Magic’s crushing hard on football star Dallas Chase. Luckily, Magic’s not alone: with the help of a new crew of fabulous fellow misfits and her Grammy Mae’s vintage pom poms by her side, Tragic Magic might just survive—and even thrive—at cheer camp.
Kaitlyn and Noah are arch-enemies at their summer camp, and with good reason. They are rivals in everything, and both are determined to come out on top. But when they suddenly start to see double and it turns out that their camp counselors have doppelgangers running amok, they have to work together to get to the bottom of the strangely replicating counselors and save their camp from the Scaremaster–who seems to be pulling the strings from inside the pages of his creepy book. Will Kaitlyn and Noah learn that it takes two to outwit the Scaremaster and save their campmates, or will the clones win this round?
Welcome to Camp Launchpad!
Summer is in full swing, which means a new class of kids has arrived to attend the best space camp in Florida…or at least, it used to be. With growing competition from the trendy rival camp next door, Camp Launchpad needs all the help it can get to keep its doors open.
Campers Val, Mark, and Pete are here for very different reasons: following in the footsteps of an astronaut mom, living up to expectations as a vice president’s son, or getting a once-in-a-lifetime scholarship. But they all have one huge thing in common: Their future in the stars launches from here…if there’s still a camp to launch from.
When the hotshot owner of the rival space camp makes a ten-million-dollar bet that could turn Camp Launchpad around, this unlikely trio must band together to pull off a miracle. If they don’t, this could be Camp Launchpad’s last summer ever!
Twelve-year-old Abigail (she/her/hers) is so excited to spend her summer at Camp QUILTBAG, an inclusive retreat for queer and trans kids. She can’t wait to find a community where she can be herself—and, she hopes, admit her crush on that one hot older actress to kids who will understand.
Thirteen-year-old Kai (e/em/eir) is not as excited. E just wants to hang out with eir best friend and eir parkour team. And e definitely does not want to think about the incident that left eir arm in a sling—the incident that also made Kai’s parents determined to send em somewhere e can feel like emself.
After a bit of a rocky start at camp, Abigail and Kai make a pact: If Kai helps Abigail make new friends, Abigail will help Kai’s cabin with the all-camp competition. But as they navigate a summer full of crushes, queer identity exploration, and more, they learn what’s really important. Camp QUILTBAG is a heartfelt story full of the joy that comes from being and loving yourself.
Rafe Khatchadorian, the hero of the bestselling Middle School series, is ready for a fun summer at camp–until he finds out it’s a summer school camp! Luckily, Rafe easily makes friends with his troublemaking cabin mates and bunkmate, a boy nicknamed Booger-Eater, who puts up with endless teasing from the other kids. Rafe soon realizes there’s more to a person than a nickname, though, and Booger-Eater might be the kind of friend you want on your side when the boys from the Cool Cabin attack.
Twelve-year-old Maren is sure theater camp isn’t for her. Theater camp is for loud, confident, artsy people: people like her older sister, Hadley—the last person Maren wants to think about—and her cinema-obsessed, nonbinary bunkmate, Theo. But when a prank goes wrong, Maren gets drawn into the hunt for a diamond ring that, legend has it, is linked to the camp’s namesake, Charlotte “Charlie” Goodman, a promising director in Blacklist Era Hollywood.
When Maren connects the clues to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, she and her new friends are off searching through lighting booths, orchestra pits and costume storages, discovering the trail and dodging camp counselors. But they’re not the only ones searching for the ring, and with the growing threat of camp closing forever, they’re almost out of time.
In the blink of a summer, Bea goes from having a best friend and a place she belongs to being dropped and invisible, eating lunch alone and only talking to teachers. The end of sixth grade and the start of Camp Amelia can’t come soon enough.
But then the worst part of school, ex-best friend Maisy, shows up in Bea’s safe place and ruins it all. Maisy lands in the same bunk as Bea and summer suddenly seems dire. Never having camped a day in her life, Maisy agrees: it’s hopeless. She should be at home, spending time with her little sister and hanging out with her super popular crew of friends–not at this stupid adventure camp failing everything and being hated by everyone. In a desperate bid to belong, Maisy offers Bea a deal: if Bea helps her fit in at the camp, she will get Bea into the M & M’s, their town’s popular clique, when they enter seventh grade in the fall. The Popularity Pact is born.
