Camp Shady Crook — Review & Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
~ Thomas A. Edison ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Successful writers often have good tips for us as we stumble along the writing path. HERE are some tips from Jonathan Franzen.

You want your query letters to agents to be perfect. Mike Wells has an excellent post HERE that points out 15 Common Mistakes Found in Query Letters.

Silence can be a pretty powerful tool in writing. Margie Lawson has a good post HERE on Writers in the Storm on the subject of silence.

Summer is upon us, and I may be absent once in awhile. Sometimes family things take over or I get a little wanderlust, so if I disappear for a week now and then, don’t be surprised, and just know, to steal a phrase from the Arnold,  I’ll be back.

Summer camp seems like an appropriate subject for today’s post, so I’d like to talk about Camp Shady Crook by Lee Gjertsen Malone. It’s a light, summery kind of read. Here is the review I wrote for the San Francisco Book Review.

Archie is sent to camp for six weeks in the summer mostly because his stepmother needs a break from him as she has young twins taking up her time. Vivian is sent to the same summer camp because her parents, travel agents who usually take her on their summer tours, are upset about her getting into trouble at school. Archie, who happens to share a name with an incredibly rich guy but doesn’t have any money of his own, spends every summer with his partner-in-crime, Oliver, a counselor in training at this poor excuse for a camp, running cons on the rich kids who come. When Vivian shows up and runs a small con right away, Archie realizes he has competition. They are stuck with each other all summer and end up as unlikely allies.

Author Lee Gjertsen Malone must have spent some time at camp in the summer. She paints a picture most former campers can relate to, and her characters are well-rounded and interesting, although not always likable. The writing is crisp, and the story is pretty fast-moving with a lot of humor. This is perfect for the middle-grade set.

I have a gently-read ARC of this book for one of you. All you need do is be a follower or subscriber (it’s free!), have a U.S. address, and leave a comment below. If you would like extra chances, please share the link to this post on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media outlet and let me know you have done that. If you are reading this in your email, please click HERE to get to my blog, then click on the title of the post, and leave a comment. And don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at the Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.