Camp Girls

February 10, 2020
Krasnow (Surrendering to Motherhood) recounts in her charming memoir the many life lessons learned while attending Wisconsin’s Camp Agawak, a sleep-away girl’s summer camp, from the age of eight in 1963. “All that is very adventurous, very sentimental, very brave, and very naughty about who I am today was birthed and nurtured there,” she explains. Toggling between past and present, Krasnow describes growing up in the Chicago suburbs as the daughter of a Polish Holocaust survivor, and notes that summers at Camp Agawak in the wilds of Wisconsin sowed the seeds for her life as a newspaper reporter and then as an author, and instilled in her kindness, responsibility, a sense of ambition, a desire to contribute to the greater good of a community, and taught her to remain steadfast during tough times. Krasnow also writes movingly of her close-knit community of alumni campers, who still maintain close ties to Camp Agawak as they support each other through such ordeals as breast cancer, the suicide of a sibling, and the death of a spouse. This is a thoroughly enjoyable dip into nostalgia for the simpler times of youth.

March 1, 2020
Krasnow continues to focus on intimate relationships and personal growth, this time through the lens of the summer camp experience. A self-described "summer camp lifer," the author, whose books include The Secret Lives of Wives and Surrendering to Motherhood, has penned an extended love letter to the lakeside camp of her youth. Throughout, she advocates for the positive, life-changing effects of camp life for all children. Starting at the age of 8, Krasnow attended northern Wisconsin's Camp Agawak for two months and continued for the next 10 summers as a camper and counselor. "Camp...is where it all started for me," writes the author, continuing, "all that is very adventurous, very sentimental, very brave, and very naughty about who I am today was birthed and nurtured there." Later, the mother of four sons accompanied her boys to their summer camp to work as staff. In yet a third camp run, she returned to Agawak in her 60s to spend summers as a staff member, reviving the camp literary magazine. Krasnow organizes the chapters by traits purportedly cultivated by camp--independence, ambition, versatility, responsibility, and so on--and intersperses her recollections with those of some lifelong camp friends about how the experiences engender these qualities. While the author does fall into repetition and mawkishness as she recounts her beloved activities, songs, and traditions, most readers will be convinced of the value of summer camp in building confidence and character--especially for iGen kids. Free of technology and parental micromanagement yet "seasoned by full-throttle summers that teach us a bounty of skills," writes the author, "we become resourceful and adventurous adults who feel like we can do just about anything--no matter our age." Not everyone will relate to the intensity of Krasnow's immersion in camp life, but her argument for the importance of a sacred childhood space will resonate with many. A lighthearted read appropriate for summertime.

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March 1, 2020
Summer camp is a time of change; a time when girls bond, compete, and form a lifetime of memories. In this love letter to summer camp, bestselling memoirist Krasnow (The Secret Lives of Wives, 2011) reflects on her experiences over the years. Krasnow began attending Wisconsin-based Camp Agawak when she was just eight years old, and she enjoyed it so much that she became a counselor. Krasnow still travels to Agawak yearly to help, teaching young girls how to write and helping them contribute to the camp newsletter, the Agalog. Krasnow credits camp for the development of many life skills, from independence to valuing tradition, and she details them in each chapter. Former campers, particularly women, will revel in the nostalgia emanating from these pages; non-campers may feel somewhat left out, but may also find this memoir an interesting window into a different past. Krasnow also muses about her life as a journalist, and she is at her best when recounting specific stories that engage the reader, such as her reminiscences on finding long-lost friends.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)