Pack up your duffel, we’re going to camp! Several new, queer-inclusive, camp-themed middle grade books are just the excuse I need to round up a whole cabin’s worth of such novels and graphic novels from recent years, featuring diverse types of camps and campers! Give a rucksack full of them to your favorite tween!
The first three books below are just out this year (and Camp Twisted Pine isn’t actually out until September, but can be preordered). Click images for full reviews and more.
A spooky mystery of magical realism, friendships, and a first crush, set at a summer camp in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.A nonbinary protagonist navigates self-confidence and finding one’s place in this summer camp-themed graphic novel.A fun graphic novel set at a summer theater camp, with a nonbinary protagonist and a sweet queer romance.Set at a summer camp exclusively for queer youth, this story offers plenty of intrigue and interpersonal ups and downs (plus a nonbinary, possibly magical, squirrel!). It’s full of all the queer joy you could want from a summer camp novel.A story of two Black girls at an elite music camp, told in alternating prose sections of each girl’s voice, with interstitial verses from the perspective of the camp itself. A lyrical and moving story of transformation and identity.At a theater camp in the Berkshires, 12-year-old Maren stumbles upon a mystery involving the camp’s namesake, a rising director in 1940s Hollywood. There’s queerness aplenty here, along with creatively drawn characters, lots of action, and a twist I didn’t see coming.A bisexual girl at band camp navigates shifting friendships, a crush on another girl, and her future as a drummer. Two girls (one with two moms, the other who is queer herself) have the chance to patch up their fractured friendship at a summer theater camp.The third volume of this early middle grade series is set at roller derby camp and centers Tomoko, who experiences microaggressions but learns to speak up for herself and become a leader. While Tomoko isn’t said to be queer, two teammates are (although there’s more about them in the first volume). A fun caper about two girls sent to the same summer camp by their single gay dads, who are dating each other and want the girls to get know each other. They resist at first—but while family is eventually found, it’s not in the way most readers might initially guess.Two boys, one transgender and the other cisgender but with two moms (one cis and one trans) learn to define masculinity in their own ways in this sweet and earnest novel set at a baseball camp. A girl with two dads and a love of astronomy must use her STEM skills to figure out the mystery of her summer camp in this quirky and fun graphic novel.Offbeat fun with a nonbinary vampire kid in the graphic novel sequel to The Accursed Vampire.A queer, Black 13-year-old, goes to an all-White Christian youth backpacking camp and finds friendship with a transgender camper in this thoughtful but gently funny graphic novel.The hilarious, award-winning comic series about five girls tackling supernatural mysteries at a summer camp for “Hardcore Lady-Types.” One of the girls is trans, and two are dating each other.
Junior scout badges go to the below novels that are partly but not entirely set at summer camps or aren’t set there at all but derive significant plot points from summer camp friendships.
A humorous but insightful novel about shifting middle-school social circles, crushes, and coming out.This third book in the series about two moms and their five kids centers on 12-year-old Harbor, finding where she fits into the family (and developing a same-sex crush of her own).An 11-year-old girl navigates friendships, growing up, and having obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in this semi-autobiographical graphic novel.
