“Coy­otes” by Ali Littman

“Before the fire, there is glit­ter. There’s glit­ter on the sign out­side the girls’ cab­in—G‑3 So Free! … The girls wake to glit­ter on their pil­lows and in their sheets, sparks of gold and red catch­ing in the cor­ners of their eyes. They roll glit­ter oil across their pubes­cent skin so their arms and legs glow at dusk.… They have glit­ter jel­ly san­dals and Lip Smack­ers and milk pens.” 

In this exquis­ite­ly writ­ten, nos­tal­gic short sto­ry, five girls come of age at Jew­ish sum­mer camp in the ear­ly 2000s. Ali Littman’s poet­ic prose vivid­ly brings her char­ac­ters’ expe­ri­ences to life.

The Jews of Sum­mer: Sum­mer Camp and Jew­ish Cul­ture in Post­war Amer­i­ca by San­dra Fox

“For any­one who attend­ed Jew­ish sum­mer camp, this book is sure to evoke nos­tal­gia,” writes Emi­ly Schnei­der in her review of this book. ​“But even for read­ers who have nev­er par­tic­i­pat­ed in this part of Jew­ish Amer­i­can life, San­dra Fox’s new study of its impact will both raise and answer many ques­tions.” The Jews of Sum­mer won two Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards, one for His­to­ry and the oth­er for Mod­ern Jew­ish Life. The judges note: ​“this vol­ume is a delight­ful way to learn more about post­war Amer­i­can Jews and an excit­ing exam­ple of what the method­olo­gies of social and anthro­po­log­i­cal his­to­ry can offer the field of Jew­ish stud­ies.… This is the rare book that can tru­ly speak to non-aca­d­e­m­ic audi­ences even as it makes a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the field.”

Taran­tu­la by Eduar­do Hal­fon, trans­lat­ed by Daniel Hahn

For a dark­er take on sum­mer camp, check out Eduar­do Hal­fon’s haunt­ing nov­el Taran­tu­la, new­ly trans­lat­ed by Daniel Hahn. Review­er Daniel H. Tur­tel writes that ​“a Jew­ish out­door sum­mer pro­gram in Guatemala turns into a night­mare when, in an attempt to edu­cate the chil­dren under their charge, the coun­selors stage a reen­act­ment of the Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camps, with them­selves as Nazis and the unwit­ting campers as their vic­tims, set in the 1980s. Many years lat­er, one of the campers, a fic­tion­al Eduar­do Hal­fon, meets the lead insti­ga­tor in Berlin, and con­fronts both his past and his mem­o­ry. Fast-paced and dark, with an under­tone of vio­lent men­ace that sim­mers qui­et­ly beneath the page with­out ever quite bub­bling over, Taran­tu­la is a mas­ter­ful nov­el on inher­i­tance and memory.”

Camp Camp: Where Fan­ta­sy Island Meets Lord of the Flies by Roger Ben­nett and Jules Shell

This visu­al arts book reminds us of the adven­tures and mis­ad­ven­tures of sum­mer camp — those that make us smile and those that make us cringe. ​“the authors’ point [is] that sum­mer camp is​‘the sto­ry of our gen­er­a­tion,’” Nan­ci Hol­lan­der observes in her review. ​“While reel­ing between nos­tal­gia and hys­te­ria, we rev­el in Camp Camp​’s desire to evoke child­hood mem­o­ries. Pok­ing fun at each camp rit­u­al, and those who par­tic­i­pat­ed in them, allows us to revis­it the past. Beau­ti­ful­ly com­posed, the pic­tures and sto­ries are can­did and sincere.”

Chunky Goes to Camp by Yehu­di Mercado

Not every­one is excit­ed for sum­mer camp. For some of us, the prospect of being away from home for weeks on end sounds more scary than fun. This fact is bril­liant­ly explored in Yehu­di Mer­cado’s sec­ond graph­ic nov­el for mid­dle grade read­ers. Review­er Emi­ly Schnei­der writes, ​“Hudi Mer­ca­do, the smart, fun­ny, and inse­cure Jew­ish Lati­no kid who first appeared in Chunky, is ready for sum­mer camp. Per­haps ​“ready’ is an over­state­ment.… In this high­ly rec­om­mend­ed sto­ry, author Yehu­di Mer­ca­do has cre­at­ed, à la his first vol­ume, a younger ver­sion of him­self who is utter­ly con­vinc­ing and impos­si­ble not to like. His imag­i­nary mas­cot, Chunky, a fun­ny but insight­ful crea­ture who shares a body type and a sense of irony with his human friend, is also back to sup­port Hudi and offer insights.… In the after­word, as Mer­ca­do reflects back on his child­hood, he assures ​‘odd­balls’ and ​‘weirdos’ that they will find their niche and live to tell the tale.”

On Black­ber­ry Hill by Rachel Mann

Anoth­er book for younger read­ers, Rachel Man­n’s YA nov­el On Black­ber­ry Hill won the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award for Young Adult Lit­er­a­ture in 2016. ​“When her musi­cian father goes on tour in Japan, Reena is forced to join her stand­off­ish cousin Lila at Camp Tova, a Jew­ish sleep-away camp,” writes review­er Jil­lian Bietz. ​“How­ev­er, she is intrigued by the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn more about her moth­er, who died when she was a baby, in the place her par­ents met two decades pri­or.… On Black­ber­ry Hill depicts the val­ue of mul­tigen­er­a­tional famil­ial bonds and the jour­ney towards self-dis­­­cov­­ery which teens (espe­cial­ly those famil­iar with the often insu­lar Jew­ish sleep-away camp cul­ture) will enjoy reading.”

“Jew­ish Sleep­away Camp Gave My Messy Human Body a Home” by Ariel­la Elovic

In this essay, author and illus­tra­tor Ariel­la Elovic describes the sud­den free­dom she found in her own body when she lived in a bunk with oth­er girls. ​“Hav­ing a human body with hair and smells and rolls of fat wasn’t strange,” she real­ized — all of the oth­ers had one, too. ​“Spend­ing two months of the year with these girls encour­aged me to (if only for a moment) recon­sid­er the ideas I had about how I had to look or how women should look. I left each sum­mer know­ing that me and my body had a lov­ing home to come back to.”

Camp Girls: Fire­side Lessons in Friend­ship, Courage, and Loy­al­ty by Iris Kras­now

“Camp Girls is a nos­tal­gic ram­ble for any­one who ever attend­ed sleep­away camp,” Rachel Mann declares in her review of this work of non­fic­tion, a com­bi­na­tion of mem­oir and jour­nal­ism. ​“From the smell of the pine trees, to the unfor­get­table songs and cheers, to the ruth­less com­pe­ti­tion of camp sports, Kras­now evokes the cul­ture of camp.” She points out that camp Iris Kras­now attend­ed ​“is not a Jew­ish camp, although most of the campers, when she attend­ed, were. In empha­siz­ing the longevi­ty of camp tra­di­tions, which span gen­er­a­tions, camp becomes some­thing of a reli­gion in itself; a place where every­one is fam­i­ly, all speak the same lan­guage, and creeds are sung daily.”