Camp Scare

Delilah Dawson's Camp Scare is a spooky summer-camp story for 10 year olds about a girl hoping to leave the worst year of her life behind.

What happens

Parker Nelson loves poetry, weird facts and good marks. What she's never managed is friends. So when popular Cassandra DiVecchio invites her over to work on a school project, it feels like her dreams are coming true. Then she walks upstairs and finds two other girls photographing her private journal.

Her poem is all over social media within minutes. She calls it the Ice Cream Incident, and it follows her right through to the end of seventh grade.

So Camp Care looks like a fresh start. It's hours from home, there are no phones, and nobody knows her. She's even planned a whole new personality (quiet, cool, absolutely no weird facts). Then she walks into her cabin, and there's Cassandra.

This is a book about how lonely it feels to be on the outside. Parker is a lot. She talks too fast and says the wrong thing, and she knows it. You wince for her and root for her at the same time. The other girls freeze her out and she can't work out why. There's one girl, Jenny, who seems to understand her.

And underneath all the friendship drama, something isn't right at Camp Care. The camp museum has photos and clippings from every year since 1956, except one. There's nothing at all from 1988. The director goes quiet when Parker asks why the whole camp was rebuilt. The bathroom stall door creaks open with nobody behind it. Doesn't that make you want to know what happened?

It's good to know that the bullying at the start is realistic and quite painful to read. A sensitive reader who's been left out might find it very close to home. Parker has just finished seventh grade, and she daydreams about a first kiss down by the dock.

For a reader who likes their scares slow and creepy, with real feelings underneath, it's a great pick.

What to read next

If they enjoy it, try Camp Haunt next. It's another summer camp with a spooky history, told through a camper's diary, letters and the camp's own files.