Camp Confidential – Jenna’s Dilemma

Melissa J Morgan's Camp Confidential - Jenna's Dilemma is a summer camp story for 10 year olds about a girl who just wants one thing at camp that her family isn't part of.

What happens

Jenna Bloom is eleven. She's the bunk's prankster, the one who shares the cupcakes (her mum sends two parcels a week!) and a proper Camp Lakeview old-timer.

Trouble is, so is the rest of her family. Her twin brother Adam is here. Her big sister Stephanie is a counsellor-in-training who licks her finger and wipes Jenna's face in front of the whole bunk. Her oldest brother Matt came here too, so half the grown-ups just call her Bloom.

So when Jenna gets photography as one of her camp activities and finds out Adam's doing it too, she's furious. On top of that there's a camp-wide dance to plan, a dive off the pier she really doesn't want to do and three new girls who still haven't had their initiation prank.

Underneath all the fun, something is bothering her. There are the extra parcels from home, a knot in her stomach whenever Visiting Day comes up and a brother who keeps trying to talk about it. You notice it before Jenna is ready to say it out loud.

The bunk is a big, noisy crowd, but it's easy to tell them apart. Natalie loves clothes and gets teased about a crush. Alex is blunt and won't touch the cupcakes. Grace gets excited about absolutely everything (even a camp announcement everyone saw coming).

It's an experience lots of kids will recognise. You love your brothers and sisters, but sometimes you'd give anything to be the only one of you for a while. Jenna's sudden "Because you smell!" to her twin in front of all his friends is very funny and a little bit mean, and she knows it.

It's American, so there are bunks, CITs and a mess hall. Nothing a British reader won't pick up straight away.

This isn't the first Camp Confidential book, and there are nods to things that happened earlier in the summer. The first chapter introduces everyone you need.

What to read next

Fancy another camp story? In Braving the Deep, Luciana heads off to a two-week astronaut training camp that ends with a dive to a habitat on the sea floor, while her thoughts keep drifting back to her little sister at home.