5 Great Middle Grade Books About Summer Camps

Black excellence and Black joy take center stage in this delightful novel. When 13-year-old Emmett’s older brother gets a job at an exclusive Black summer camp far away from home, Emmett secretly applies for a scholarship and gets into the camp, much to his brother’s annoyance. While Emmett is known as something of a genius at his middle school, everyone excels at this summer camp, with a lot more accolades than Emmett. This summer camp is intense, and students take classes in Black excellence and specialize in certain fields. Emmett chooses dance, but he threatens his friendships and his standing as a dancer by trying to do too much and losing confidence in his own abilities.

I especially love how steeped in Black history this book is; there’s a lot to dig into. At the same time, the characters are funny and relatable. It’s a companion novel to the film “Boy Genius,” but both stand on their own as separate stories.

I mean, who doesn’t have a crush on Laura Dern a la Jurassic Park? Right? Twelve-year-old Abigail, one of the stars of Camp QUILTBAG, is with me. Unfortunately, when she admits to having a crush on her BFF’s mom (in addition to Laura Dern), her Catholic school classmates abandon her. In search of community, Abigail signs up for a queer summer camp.

Meanwhile, Kai is struggling with eir’s own friend drama. After coming out as nonbinary with neopronouns, e gets jumped, and eir’s arm is injured. Kai is also coming to Camp QUILTBAG, though more reluctantly. Abigail and Kai make a truce on day one to help each other out at camp, but things get a little complicated when the camp announces a competition.

It’s such a joy to read about a queer-affirming summer camp! All the crush angst and friend drama make for a slightly stressful but super fun read for kids.

This middle grade novel is set at a Chinese-culture summer camp called SCCWEE (pronounced like “squee”). Phee’s mom is one of the camp’s directors. Phee and her BFFs will age out of the camp after this year, and Phee has high expectations for what her final year as a camper will look like. When a group of Chinese adoptees joins the camp, many of whom are uninterested in learning about Chinese culture, Phee feels like all her summer plans with her friends are dashed. Wang tackles a lot of big topics in this with ease, from Asian American hate crimes to unpacking internal biases. There’s also lots of friend and crush drama kids will enjoy, plus a fashion show!

This is an eerie middle grade horror about the Jersey Devil. Naomi’s parents are getting divorced, and they decide to send her and her twin younger brothers to a summer camp as they work things out–something Naomi very much does NOT want. But Naomi has trouble communicating, especially when she disagrees with others, so she tends to stay quiet. She immediately notices something is wrong at the camp. There’s too much kudzu, and it shouldn’t be here at all. Then, campers start disappearing. She also develops a crush on another girl camper, who is Deaf. To figure out what is happening and how to get the other kids back, Naomi will need to push against her own anxiety about speaking and share with others.

Summer camps are the perfect setting for scary stories like this one.

Younger middle grade readers will adore this funny graphic novel about a summer camp for monsters. Camp Yeti closed years ago due to a lack of yeti campers, but now Tasha’s family is revamping the camp to include all monster children. Tasha can’t wait to make new friends and have her first camp! But not all campers get along, and the possibility of humans finding the camp becomes a real threat.

Full of friendly mayhem and great worldbuilding, this is a super fun read that I’m hoping will be turned into a series. My eight-year-old demands it!