Campingland
by Ame Dyckman; illus. by James Burks
Primary    Two Lions/Amazon    40 pp.
7/24    9781662510830    $17.99

Bugs and bad weather and bears…oh, my! At first, camping seems like a “fun and easy” vacation. For a family of inexperienced campers, however, disaster lurks around every pine tree. Luckily, the frustrated family (portrayed in the illustrations with a variety of skin tones) stumbles upon Campingland, a bright, plastic-y, climate-controlled paradise, complete with an abundance of modern conveniences and politely accommodating animatronic forest friends. “Not like our first camping trip,” whose details are revealed in a series of zany flashbacks that parallel the Campingland activities. Dyckman’s straightforward and energetic prose makes for an engaging story. The use of speech bubbles with a large, playful font for the dialogue encourages interactive participation for emerging as well as more proficient readers. Burks’s digital illustrations are full of humorous details. The candy-colored vistas of Campingland are in sharp contrast to the gray-weather outdoor scenes of the real campsite. But that first trip, it turns out, was the one full of “real family memories,” and now the family is “a lot more prepared” to give outdoor camping another try and to “just roll with it…no matter what.” (Uh-oh.)

From the July/August 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.