This past weekend, I went to Bookfest at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center to hear a session called "Coming of Age in America With Roger Bennett and Benjamin Nugent." I had heard about Bennett's books Bar Mitzvah Disco and Camp Camp from the literary agent we happen to have in common and was really eager to hear him talk about my obsession: Summer camp in the 1980s. Having gone to a YMCA overnight camp from age 7 through 13 and later worked at a Y Camp in Oregon and a Jewish camp in the Berkshires, you could say I'm a camp-o-file. Oh and that doesn't even include the camp staff reunion I dragged my now husband (then boyfriend) to about five years ago.

I was definitely able to get my nostalgia fix looking at the photos Bennett collected from his extensive network of past campers, but I also learned that he has a greater goal for his books. While it came off as being a bit tongue and cheek (British sarcasm?), he challenged Tom Brokaw to a fight over whose generation is really the greatest. Through these collections, Bennett is attempting to tell the story of my generation – aka Generation X – through books full of bad 80s hair, Bennetton sweaters and bubble handwriting. Camp Camp is just the second in what will be a 20-book series that is part of his undertaking called The Academy of the Recent Past.

Bennet's ambitious goals aside, I do think camp was a seminal experience for many of growing up — not "spa camp" or "hangout on a college campus camp" but "go away for the entire summer if you can make it that long camp." Camp Camp captures everything from the faux Native American rituals to the pale green and pink plates, the tortuous wedgies and nasty gossip to first kisses and counselor crushes (they were gods – remember? Even though they were just teenagers!). Most of all, the book seems to capture the possibility of starting over — for a lot of kids who struggled to fit in during the school year, camp was a place you could reinvent yourself. I just started reading the book and already it nails the longing throughout the year for that first day of camp including the meticulous planning around what to wear.

I am really curious to know Ypulse readers' ideas about how camp has changed (or whether it has) for the current generation of campers. I know at my old Y Camp, for example, you can no longer stay for the entire summer — only a week at a time. I also know from past Ypulse coverage that niche camps have been springing up like "princess camps" or other academic oriented camps that sound like just another way to pad your college resume. And of course the Camp Camp generation didn't have the internet or cell phones yet. We had to hand write letters to mom and dad. The phone call was only in cases of severe homesickness or physical illness. So all you modern-day campers or parents of campers, what aspects of Bennett's Camp Camp memories are definitively ours and what themes live on today?

Categorized under: Books & Print, Books Freestyle

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