Rebec­ca is Jew­ish, and the newest his­tor­i­cal char­ac­ter in the Amer­i­can Girl series. Sto­ries about her life on the Low­er East Side of New York in the ear­ly years of the 20th cen­tu­ry, writ­ten by this author, are well writ­ten and have been received with pos­i­tive reviews by read­ers. This lat­est nov­el is an Amer­i­can Girl Mys­tery, join­ing oth­ers in that series. Eleven year old Rebec­ca is select­ed to go away to sleep-away camp in the sum­mer of 1916, enabling her and oth­er girls to leave their poor homes and enjoy the invig­o­rat­ing envi­ron­ment of the coun­try. In Rebecca’s case that includes leav­ing New York with its polio epi­dem­ic. The fear and stig­ma of infec­tious dis­ease fol­lows the trav­el­ers to camp. Rebec­ca imme­di­ate­ly enjoys the pas­toral set­ting and the oppor­tu­ni­ty made avail­able to her, but at the same time encoun­ters dif­fi­cult social rela­tion­ships with sev­er­al of the girls in camp. There is bul­ly­ing, accom­pa­nied by pranks and cajol­ing. The campers are intro­duced to Native Amer­i­can themes, using Longfellow’s Hiawatha as a pro­gram cen­ter­piece. At the cul­mi­na­tion, a girl goes miss­ing, and a series of mys­te­ri­ous events are explained. The mys­tery is not as com­plex as it had appeared to be to the girls. At the same time as the mys­tery unrav­els, the rela­tion­ships between the campers are much improved. The writ­ing style is engag­ing and the sto­ry flows eas­i­ly. The char­ac­ters are easy to relate to, though some are paint­ed in black and white terms; the bul­ly and her fol­low­ers are clear­ly delin­eat­ed, where­as love­ly Rebec­ca often feels alone and friend­less. An after­ward, the ​“Look­ing Back: A Peek into the Past” sec­tion, gives an inter­est­ing intro­duc­tion to social life and sum­mer camps of the peri­od; it is accom­pa­nied by old pho­tos that bring the events to life. This Rebec­ca Mys­tery would be inter­est­ing for read­ers seek­ing a good his­tor­i­cal fic­tion nov­el, as well as those want­i­ng to enjoy a mys­tery. Grades 3 – 6.