Going to camp every year with her family made it so Abby was prepared for her first year of elementary camp alone. Arriving at camp registration only to find that none of the camp counselors that she knew where going to be there left her a little nervous, but she was bound determined to not let a few new faces scare her away. Learning all the new rules was the hard part, as the deans daughter at junior high camp, she was given run of the place and options of which activities she wanted to take part of. As a camper of the elementary camp, she had restrictions on when to do what, she didn’t like that at all. Wondering how she was ever going to have fun at camp with all these rules, Abby set out to change a few. Her only goal was to make it more fun for everyone, she couldn’t understand why her friend Carin could be enjoying herself, but she seemed to be. The only problem was that the harder Abby tried to make things how she was used to from junior high camp, the less fun she was having all the while watching while everyone else seemed to be having a great time with the way things where.

Sometimes the best way to learn a lesson is to live through it. Abby did that. Things may have been different but she learned that sometimes those differences are a good thing. While this story did put out a good lesson, I had a difficult time getting interested in any of the characters. They are youths and this story is written for youths but I really found all of them superficial and at times annoying. So much could have been handled different and that may have been part of the story, but for a church camp I would have hoped for better staff reactions to some of it. Like I said, this is a book about youths for youths, the simplicity of the writing style may suit them, but it did not me. It looks as though Jenifer Brady has written several other books about camping to go along with this one. ( )