The Best Worst Camp Out Ever

March 1, 2024

PreS-Gr 2-It's school break and time for an adventure! And dad's ready to go, sort of. The burritos are ready for the car ride, the car is comedically overpacked, and picturesque Camp Lago Azul, where they're hoping to set down stakes, is full. So the boy and his father move along to arid, arborless Camp Lago Verde, too late to cook dinner and short of their tent poles. Sleeping under the stars is gorgeous, but they wake up nose-to-nose with curious deer. Their full day in nature features bears and skunks, a boating idyll that doesn't produce any fish for dinner, and a rainstorm which forces a flourish of ingenuity in shelter-building. In the end, nearly everything goes wrong, but between positive attitudes, parental problem-solving chops, and a serious slew of PB&Js, it turns out to be a picturesque bonding experience. Cepeda's sketchy, colorful images of natural landscapes and friendly fauna are a solid argument for the value of any time spent in nature. The comic's paneling choices, while slightly idiosyncratic for new readers, keep the story rolling, climbing, and flowing through the various stages of the trip. The not-so-subtle wink to adults to keep their cool and make the best of similar situations will definitely elicit knowing chuckles and nods from those accompanying young readers. Cepeda's characters are olive-skinned and dark-haired. VERDICT An efficient, richly illustrated, and funny adventure, entertaining for early readers and perhaps even more amusing for adults sharing the story.-Emilia Packard

Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2024
Cepeda, creator of many excellent first-step beginning readers (I Hop; I Help; I Dig), offers a comic for more experienced readers. "What could go wrong?" a father asks his son while packing the car for a camping trip. Well, for starters, the campground is full, but the pair makes the best of a less-comfortable campsite down the road. When it turns out -- "Uh-oh" -- that Dad forgot the tent poles, they take the opportunity to sleep under the stars. Mostly minor setbacks (skunks, rain) force them to enjoy the experience they're having instead of the one they'd expected. Digital illustrations in aquas, greens, and browns have an ink-and-watercolor feel that suits the low-stakes outdoor adventure. Readers will need some fluency to navigate multiple word bubbles per page, multiple speakers, and compound and multisyllabic words with a number of sound blends and linguistic quirks. Most of the language is likely to be familiar, though, and the illustrations provide support for less common words, such as the night sky full of stars around "Venus...and the Big Dipper...and Capella...and Polaris." When father and son get home, Mom asks how the trip went, and the child shouts, "Everything went wrong...It was great!" A solid lesson for all of us on how to navigate life's little disappointments. Adrienne L. Pettinelli

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2024
Cepeda, creator of many excellent first-step beginning readers (I Hop; I Help; I Dig), offers a comic for more experienced readers. "What could go wrong?" a father asks his son while packing the car for a camping trip. Well, for starters, the campground is full, but the pair makes the best of a less-comfortable campsite down the road. When it turns out -- "Uh-oh" -- that Dad forgot the tent poles, they take the opportunity to sleep under the stars. Mostly minor setbacks (skunks, rain) force them to enjoy the experience they're having instead of the one they'd expected. Digital illustrations in aquas, greens, and browns have an ink-and-watercolor feel that suits the low-stakes outdoor adventure. Readers will need some fluency to navigate multiple word bubbles per page, multiple speakers, and compound and multisyllabic words with a number of sound blends and linguistic quirks. Most of the language is likely to be familiar, though, and the illustrations provide support for less common words, such as the night sky full of stars around "Venus...and the Big Dipper...and Capella...and Polaris." When father and son get home, Mom asks how the trip went, and the child shouts, "Everything went wrong...It was great!" A solid lesson for all of us on how to navigate life's little disappointments.

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)