This memoir about the author's experiences at an eight-week camp in the summer of 1974 is not one I would have read had I not won it in a contest, but it was a nice story. The author spends most of her time in the woods bemoaning her unpopularity and chasing boys, which is made more interesting with a thorough sprinkling of amusing anecdotes. While I don't expect this quick little read to appeal to anyone who was never a 13-year-old girl or a camper, it was a pleasant diversion. ( )

A light memoir about a young teen's experiences at camp in Maine in the 70's. Not the most well written book ever, it was a quick read with the occasional opportunity to giggle as you remember your own 13 year old experiences. The story began strong, but midway through I found myself a little bored and hoping for it to be over. ( )

I thoroughly enjoyed this light, sweet book about the author’s experiences in the 1970’s as a thirteen-year-old at Camp Kin-A-Hurra, a Jewish sleep-away camp in Maine. The story was sparkling with nostalgia and humor. I especially liked Schneider's reminiscences of her trying to attract the attention of her crush, all the while being pursued by a guy in whom she had no interest. Didn’t that always seem to happen at that age? The photographs and the song lyrics seemed very familiar. I may not have been at the author’s camp when I was a kid, but I was in that same uncertain world that Mindy Schneider discovered at Camp Kin-A-Hurra. It was fun to revisit that time in Schneider’s charming book. ( )

Summer camp in Maine. Away from home, escaping from parents, siblings and reputations. A chance to learn new skills, meet new friends and, the most important, get that all important first boyfriend.

That is Mindy Schneider's dream when she convinces her parents to let her go to summer camp in far away Maine. Her parents want her to return to the same stuffy camp she went to for the past two summers but, with help from a home visit by camp owner Saul Rattner, she gets permission to attend Camp Kin-A-Hurra. A beautiful camp set in the sunny forests of Maine on the side of a picturesque lake, it seems like the perfect place to find the man of her dreams. Unfortunately, Saul is not a totally honest salesperson. After a long ride from New York to the Vacationland State, Mindy is shocked to see the dilapidated broken camp that is really Camp Kin-A-Hurra. She is moved to the bunk for the "mature' campers when the counselor finds her passing time by playing her clarinet. There she meets the unique assortment of girls with whom she will spend the next 8 weeks. Her bunkmates include Betty, whose nose is always in a book, Autumn Evening, who is only as into her past lives as much as this one, and Dana, her rival for the cute boy, Kenny. Being 13 in 1974 and spending with backed up toilets, stale food in continual rain was not part of the plan. "Apparently , summer was the official rainy season in this part of Maine, along with spring and fall. In winter it just snowed."

But days at Camp Kin-A-Hurra are unstructured, totally different from the summer camp to which she was accustomed. Plenty of time to visit the boys' camp, put on plays and just hang out. Not the stress of passing swimming tests, sticking to routine and keeping up with social classes. At Camp Kin-A-Hurra the facilities are not the best, or even adequate, but it is not a bad place for a young girl to discover who she might be, to stretch her horizons and flex her social muscle. "This was the Camp Kin-A-Hurra way of doing things: whatever makes everything fit." It is not a bad way of doing things when it includes people too. As she says, maybe Saul Rattner had the right idea-or maybe he was just a con man, but for that summer it all worked.

Mindy Schneider has written the quintessential memoir of growing up in the 1970s. She brings the time to life, the age that was coming from the turmoil of the 60s, a little lost, led by Nixon and suffering a small loss of identity. She uses the structure of the summer camp to look back at life where tv still rules supreme, the hippies are now the parents and . It is an examination of growing up, discovering that being yourself might be ok after all, appearance may not be everything. Schneider's ability to use details to portray the feelings of that summer, from the odor of the boy's bathroom to the the volume of her mother's voice as they take the endless car ride from Long Island to Maine. She effortlessly goes back and forth through time, never losing the rhythm of the story as she places the events in the context of her life. Her humor is the triumph of the book, the turn of phrase that lets the reader chuckle as they wince from their own memories of becoming a teenager. ( )

In the end, Not a Happy Camper isn't really about summer camp. It is a book about what it means to be a 13-year-old girl, too old to be a blank slate and too young to be sure of yourself.

(Read more at Fourth-Rate Reader.) ( )