Bummer Camp by Ann Garvin
My first experience with a summer camp was one overnight in the woods with Girl Scout Troup 256. I was eight. I spent much time sobbing in the outhouse, my sleeping bag, and finding s’more sticks in the woods. Not a single terrible thing had happened, but I couldn’t stop crying.
When I returned home, I told my mother about my tears and she said, “You were homesick,” and finished loading the dishwasher.
I remember feeling oddly good while trying to control myself and stop the waterworks. A good cry is cathartic but not so great when learning to tie a knot and make a campfire with dry-eyed girls.
I wanted another shot at the summer sleepaway camp experience depicted in movies like The Parent Trap and Little Darlings: log cabins, campfires, sing-alongs. I want to earn badges because I know I’d be good at it. Give me a to-do list, and I can check off tasks and win the hospitality badge faster than a teen counselor can suggest a hike.
After college, one of my best friends and I worked as Nurses at a camp for kids with disabilities. We learned sign language, figured out how to wrangle a prosthetic eyeball back into place, and held a lot of basins for kids to barf into. I loved it.
I loved it so much that I based my upcoming book, Bummer Camp (on sale September 1), on it.
Living at a sleepaway camp was a dream come true because, along with all the bug bites, knee scratches, and stomach flu came morning revelry, mud hikes, and a wicked tire swing that is probably, to this day, why my neck is sore on rainy days. My friend and I joined in on everything. If there was sobbing in the bathrooms, we held their hands (after asking permission) and talked about their favorite thing about home. If a kid had a seizure, we gave them a soft landing and kept everyone calm, especially the camp counselors,
This camp was the kind of place where everyone belonged. Kids with unorganized body parts ran, swam and played without being made fun of. Children with eyesight issues could take careful risks and experience the outdoors in ways they probably couldn’t at home.
It got me thinking that everyone should have a Summer Sleepaway experience. And I mean Summer Camp. Not a spa or fancy place with hot rock massages and mimosas. I mean a place with mosquitos and frogs so loud you almost can’t sleep. A place where your eyelids get stuck open while wiping campfire smoke out of your eyes after eating too many gooey s’mores.
A place where your resume isn’t part of the conversation. Where nobody is really very good at anything except maybe when playing Two Truths and A Lie. A place where a camp counselor says, “Good Job,” and maybe you believe them, and maybe you don’t, but it doesn’t matter because they treat everyone the same.
That’s why I wrote my next book, Bummer Camp, about a bunch of anxious and depressed camp counselors trying to save a camp for anxious and depressed adults. Because all of us need a place to belong no matter what ails us. It’s a sister tale with precisely what you’ll find at camp: Drama, intrigue, romance, and a lot of creative thinking that might save the day if you have a day that needs saving.
