‘Camp Girls’ is a former camper’s love letter to summer camp

“Camp Girls: Fireside Lessons on Friendship, Courage, and Loyalty,” by Iris Krasnow (Grand Central Publishing, 2020), is part memoir and part camp history, though it leans more heavily toward memoir.

Krasnow spent 10 summers at Camp Agawak, in Wisconsin, first as a camper and then as a counselor. Now in her sixties, Krasnow has returned to the camp of her youth to resurrect the camp publication, Agalog, in addition to taking on other roles. It is clear from her book that camp is an uncomplicated good in her life, a place that shaped her and makes her feel alive.

Krasnow’s recollections are interspersed with interviews of women from her camp and others, though they are mostly from her age cohort and have experiences similar to hers.

“For girls who started summer camp in the 1960s, years before the passage of Title IX prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs, most every athletic endeavor beyond kickball and Ping-Pong was something new. Our school programs did not include training in rigorous sports like those offered the boys,” she writes.

Much of the book recounts the ways girls pushed themselves physically during those summers, on the lake, and during knock-down games of Capture the Flag, hiking and canoeing. As a reader, you get the sense of these young women awakening to their own power and capabilities as they run free.

In contrast, the chapter that focuses on contemporary camp life paints a picture of girls who want to relax. The world has changed, and young women have gone from being prohibited many things to being required to do all those things, and excel at them. While women of Krasnow’s generation could finally try new sports at camp, girls now play sports year-round, and camp is a break for them.

Camp today also offers campers time away from their phones and the pressures of social media.

“Social media is so often a false projection of one’s life. Camp is real life,” says Mary Fried, director and owner of Camp Agawak. “At camp, the girls wear sweatpants and T-shirts, and their hair is tied up in messy ponytails. They aren’t out-posting each other on Instagram; they are talking, not texting.

“They have the uninterrupted time to have deep and long conversations.  … Something really important happens in the woods. They begin to trust themselves more; they develop trust in each other.”

This echoes a through-line in the book – that the unstructured nature of camp allows, and often forces, young people to figure out things on their own and develop a sense of self-trust. In an increasingly over-scheduled world, camp allows young people to choose for themselves. 

“Children are more stressed than ever and are expected to have high performance in every facet of their lives,” says Keala Strahan, the head nurse at Camp Matoaka, in Smithfield, Maine. “I am definitely seeing an increase in younger and younger kids being placed on antidepressant medications, as well as medications for the treatment of ADHA and ADD.”

Campers have changed in many ways, but the world of camp has largely stayed the same. The same or similar activities are being offered  – Color Wars are fought, outdoor skills are built.

This book is a love letter to camp and doesn’t dive into the history of where the land for these camps came from, why so many have native or native-sounding names, and, though she does touch on the availability of financial aid, there is little discussion of the current class issues of camp.

While many camps were started to allow kids (often underprivileged kids) to get out of hot, dirty cities in the summers, now camps can cost upwards of $17,000 for a full summer.

While Krasnow’s personal history of camp brims with joy and excitement, there are other tidbits I found fascinating and would have loved to know more about. In a chapter on her marriage and how spending summers apart from her husband has been positive for them both, she drops in this anecdote from another camper: “My great-grandmother was a pioneer in so many ways,” says Anne. “What Jewish lady in 1920 is going to build a camp in the middle of nowhere? During all those years she owned Wicosuta, my great-grandfather only came up to camp once. He didn’t help her run it. He didn’t help her pay for it. It was her endeavor. And it was a really big deal to have a marriage like this during her times.”

I want to know everything about how this Jewish lady accomplished this in 1920!

Overall, “Camp Girls” is a nostalgic trip down memory lane to a place where girls could be free, try new things, fail and succeed, and find freedom in a world filled with prohibitions.

If you had a terrible time at camp, this won’t be for you, but if you were a devoted camp girl or always wished to be one, this will take you to summers with cool mornings, a still lake and long days in which to become yourself.

SARAH GREENLEAF (sgreenleaf@jewishallianceri.org) is the digital marketing specialist for the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and writes for Jewish Rhode Island.