Camp

A coming-of-age novel about bullying, family relationships, and the collateral damage of secrets. A great choice for book clubs (adult groups as well as teen).

Every secret has a price.

For most girls, sleepaway camp is great fun. But for Amy Becker, it's a nightmare. Amy, whose home life is in turmoil, is sent to Camp Takawanda for Girls for the first time as a teenager. Although Amy swears she hates her German-immigrant mother, who is unduly harsh with Amy's autistic younger brother, Amy is less than thrilled about going to camp. At Takawanda she is subjected to a humiliating "initiation" and relentless bullying by the ringleader of the senior campers. As she struggles to stop the mean girls from tormenting her, Amy becomes more confident. Then a cousin reveals dark secrets about Amy's mother's past, which sets in motion a tragic event that changes Amy and her family forever.

Winner of the Forward National Literature Award and selected as a book-of-the-month by the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County (New York), CAMP is widely recommended by librarians, teachers, and book groups.