By
– December 9, 2011
Though the title suggests that Mindy Schneider is not a “happy camper,” readers of her memoir will be happy indeed. Schneider’s tale of her 1974 summer experience at a Jewish overnight camp is hilarious. Burning bunks, heavy rain, capsized canoes, broken camp vehicles, night raids to the boys’ side, and a teenage obsession with kissing a boyfriend make for laughable circumstances, like the stuff of situation comedy; but, written as a memoir of her own life experience, the impact is funnier still. Original photographs, poems, and lyrics to camp songs are vivid complements to Schneider’s descriptive writing. Apt references to 1974 fashion (bell bottoms), popular culture (The Dick Van Dyke Show), and politics (“I am not a crook”) evoke a particular context for the otherwise timeless struggles of adolescents everywhere to fit in and be liked. The book’s success is a credit to the author’s artful ability to combine her own sarcastic wit as a writer with the authentic voice of a naïve, yet perceptive, thirteen-year-old girl.
Penina Grossberg is an educator and teacher mentor.