American Girl, Rebecca, takes us back in time to the early 50’s, a time just before the advent of the polio vaccine and fears of an epidemic. Rebecca is fortunate to be able to escape the heat of the inner city summer at a “fresh air” camp in the New York countryside. Building summer friendships and coming together to solve a camp mystery is as timely now as it was a century ago. Greene introduces the reader to another time and place in history, which provides interesting facts about summer camps in Rebecca’s time.

Another in the series of American Girl books. I like the Rebecca character so try to read the ones about her. In this one, her Jewish cultural heritage is not so much the focus of the book as in the others. Rebecca attends summer camp and has to deal with the issues of diversity, bullying, and teasing, as do so many kids now. The historical information about polio is also interesting. ( )

I liked my book because I like Rebecca. Rebecca is in Camp Nokomis. She misses her friend Rose. One day her not friend Corky pushes her off the side of the lake. When they were having rest time, someone put a frog in her bed. The rest of the story is about her finding out who did it. - Grace, grade 1 ( )