Sam’s summer isn’t off to a great start. Her boyfriend, Eli, ditched her for a European backpacking trip, and now she’s a counselor at Camp Blue Springs: the summer camp her eleven-year-old self swore never to return to. Sam expects the next seven weeks to be a total disaster.
That is, until she meets Gavin, the camp’s sailing instructor, who turns her expectations upside down. Gavin may have gotten the job just for his abs. Or that smile. Or the way he fills Sam’s free time with thrilling encounters—swimming under a cascade of stars, whispering secrets over s’mores, embarking on one (very precarious) canoe ride after dark.
It’s absurd. After all, Sam loves Eli. But one totally absurd, completely off-the-wall summer may be just what Sam needs. And maybe, just maybe, it will teach her something about what she really wants.
Perfect for fans of 99 Days and Anna and the French Kiss, this unforgettable, sun-drenched summer romance from one of YA’s bestselling and most beloved authors, Sarah Mlynowski, is an irresistible dive into the joys of seizing the day and embracing the unexpected. (taken from goodreads.com)
Sam is returning to the camp she went to as a child, but instead of a camper she’s now a counselor. Her boyfriend is off somewhere in Europe, running around with his cousin and having the time of his life while she’s running after children and trying to avoid Gavin in whatever way she can. But what happens when Gavin and Sam get too close?
I love sleep away camp and the fact that I can not be in camp this summer is something that makes me very sad. I am supposed to be in camp right now, having fun and meeting new people. But due to the pandemic, I am at home not at camp.
The camp that is described in the book, is very similar to the camp I went to for ten years. Like Camp Blue Springs, my summer camp was a traditional Jewish summer camp. We had a diverse group of campers and counselors, but the camp was based in its Jewish traditions. And just like Sam, I worked with the youngest group of girls in camp for the summers that I was a staff member. And a lot of the campers reminded me of my own.
This novel is a companion to I See London, I See France which came out in Summer 2017. I read I See London, I See France in camp that summer and I loved it. I was able to connect to those characters and after reading Just a Boy and a Girl In a Small Canoe, I feel like I was able to get a full story about what happened.
I found the characters to be real. The counselors are all around the same age range of 18-20ish, which is the most common age for camp counselors to be. It shows that camp is not only for the campers, but for the counselors too which I think is something people tend to forget. This novel reminded me of why, I, as a staff member love camp so much.
We have the excitement of color war, going on trips and making new friends. While for me, all my memories of camp are good ones, this is not the case for everyone. We have catty campers and even cattier counselors. When you’re in close proximity to other people for so long, sometimes you forget how to act in certain ways. Sam’s co-counselors are all different people, Talia and Lis stick by each others sides and might not be the best. Then we have Janelle, who is different and is passionate about being in camp. She is unapologetically herself and I love her a lot.
Talia and Lis are characters that I don’t think we are supposed to like. They aren’t the nicest from the minute you meet them, and they are a little less mature. Sam confronts them and I think that’s important.
Camp is tiring and I think the author does a great job at showing how camp is a whole different animal onto itself. Camp is emotionally taxing and sometimes its easier to forget theres a world outside of camp, which I think this novel did a great job of showing.
Sam makes a choice. She does something that puts her relationship with her boyfriend at risk and Gavin put his relationship with his girlfriend at the same risk. One thing I really liked about this plot line is that no one said it was a good thing. Sam knows what she did was wrong, she regrets it and she doesn’t try to justify it. She understands that when things like this happen, she has to fess up and she can not expect people to forgive her right away.
Below, is a collage I made with pictures of myself and my best friends that I met in camp with a quote from this novel.
Two months of being with people is a lot of time to be with the same faces. After knowing people for three days, you have seen them experience a long list of things. You have seen them at their worse and you have seen them at their best. By the time you leave camp, you feel like you’ve known each other your whole lives. My best friend and I met in camp summer 2017, she’s from London and by the time we left camp we felt like we were saying goodbye to family. We have video chatted every week since we since left, we saw each other last summer and hope to plan another visit soon.
When you leave camp, you spend the rest of the year looking forward and counting down to when you can come back. I speak to my camp friends at least once a day. This quote hit me hard, because for me the ten months in between the next time I go to camp are filled with counting down the days until I get to go back to camp.
If you went to camp or if you didn’t, I highly recommend this book! I read it in four hours, devouring it. This novel captures the magic of going to camp. And I think everyone can use some magic right now!
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