Unhappy Camper | Review

Unhappy Camper
Writer: Lily LaMotte
Artists: Ann Xu and Sunmi
HarperAlley; $15.99
Publisher’s rating: Ages 8-12

Michelle and her older sister Claire were inseparable when they were younger, but as they reached middle school, they began to drift apart due to differing approaches to the perennial dilemma facing the children of immigrants: Is it better to suppress one’s heritage in order to blend in, or celebrate it and risk standing out?

In Unhappy Camper, the new collaboration from Measuring Up‘s Lily LaMotte and Ann Xu, Michelle has chosen the former strategy, often hiding things about herself in order to fit in with a popular group of white girls who all sing in the school choir together. Claire, on the other hand, is proud of being Taiwanese, to the point that she’s always attended a special summer Taiwanese-American summer camp and this year will be a junior counselor there.

While Michelle plans to spend as much of her summer as possible hanging out with her friend group’s leader Jess in the hopes of securing an invite to her exclusive end-of-summer party, her parents have something else in mind: Sending her to Claire’s camp, so she can learn more about her heritage…and hopefully grow closer to her sister.

This is, of course, Michelle’s worst nightmare–see the title–and she’s not expecting to learn anything or have any fun. Camp seems to grow on her, though; there’s a mixture of typical summer camp activities like kayaking, a rope walk and campfires, with cultural stuff, like learning to speak Taiwanese, doing calligraphy of the language’s characters and singing a traditional song, the last of which is, of course, at least somewhat up Michelle’s alley.

The campers also seem to grow on her. Not only does she realize rather quickly that this is the first time she’s been anywhere where everyone looks like her, but she becomes close to fellow camper Izzy, who actually grew up in Taiwan and who she at first thinks is going to replace her as a sort of surrogate little sister to Claire.

Things don’t all go smoothly, though. On her first day, Michelle texts Jess a picture of Claire in a traditional costume, making a funny face and sweating, and the picture goes viral around school, driving a wedge between the sisters just as they were starting to get close again. When camp ends and they return to real life, will Michelle’s philosophy on being herself vs. fitting in be changed at all, and, perhaps more importantly, will she be able to win her sister back after her betrayal?

Perhaps it’s no real surprise how things turn out, but LaMotte and Xu manage to wring some rather real suspense out of it, as they do with Michelle’s attitude towards camp throughout the book.

Xu’s art is deceptively simple, the designs and renderings having a sort of juvenile, amateur look to them, but the style is married to a highly accomplished story-telling ability that results in a surprisingly intimate, familiar feel to the book.

Though Michelle’s central conflict is tied to the specifics of her immigrant heritage, the challenge of being yourself vs. trying to fit in is one that all young people can relate to…and would likely benefit from having positive examples like Michelle and Claire to look to as role models.

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