The Accidental Camper

Carol-Ann Hoyte is a children’s bookseller in Montreal and the
regional co-ordinator for the TD Canadian Children’s Book Week.

These two books are part of the Deer Lake series, which is geared toward
students aged 9 to 12 but is written at a Grade 3 reading level. In
Summer of Change, Mel is not looking forward to spending the summer at
her family’s cottage on Deer Lake. Janine is Mel’s best friend and
her family owns the cottage next to Mel’s family’s cottage. This
year won’t be any fun because Janine is moving and won’t be around
to hang out with during the summer. But things start looking up after
Mel befriends Ian Suwan in an unusual, somewhat dangerous first
encounter.

In The Accidental Camper, Mel has two best friends who are less than
crazy about one another. Diana is a high-maintenance type who doesn’t
know the first thing about the outdoors; Allison is the complete
opposite. Mel hatches a plan for the three of them to take a canoe trip
so that the two girls will have the chance to bond. Diana has her eye on
Jake, one of the trip’s organizers, so her sole motivation for
agreeing to Mel’s plan is that she will get to spend a few days being
around him. Mel succeeds in reaching her goal but not without comical
and risky twists and turns along the way.

The greatest strength of these pleasant and simply written stories is
their authentic depiction of cottage life. Though the glossaries
included are meant to help readers boost their vocabulary, they give the
books a pedagogical feel and don’t appear to be crucial to the
understanding and enjoyment of the stories. Recommended.