Camp Scare by Delilah S. Dawson
Published by Delacorte Press on August 2, 2022
ISBN: 059337326X
Pages: 288
Genres: Horror, Supernatural, Suspense
Format: Chapter Book Nonfiction
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Inspired by the author’s own traumatic week at sleepaway camp in 1988, Camp Scare is a tense, unsettling book about the lasting effects of bullying. After a bullying incident is recorded and goes viral at her school, 12 year-old Parker is given a scholarship to Camp Care, a summer camp which prides itself on being bully-free. Her excitement  to make new friends is quickly extinguished by the discovery that one of her bullies from back home is in her cabin and is determined to ruin Parker’s chance of having a fun, normal week of camp. Parker then turns to another outcast camper, who, unbeknownst to her, is a vengeful ghost.

The ghost plot, while important, is secondary in this book, which is mostly concerned with bullies. The adult characters are infuriating in their inability to recognize and intervene with Parker’s tormentors.

This book is decent, but cynical enough so that it would maybe be better off in a teen room. However, the characters are twelve so it’s clearly meant to be middle grade. The bullying that the ghost experienced is really horrific and involves a death that is reported as a suicide (which is a misunderstanding of events). The book is bleak and the resolution between the two main characters is forced; it seems as though the bully would never have had a change of heart if she hadn’t had her life threatened by the ghost. Older R.L. Stine or Christopher Pike fans might enjoy it, but it’s not the intro to the horror genre it appears to be at first glance.

Reviewed by Sarah Maciejewski, Patten Free Library, Bath