Teenagers Marcus and Alissa have grown up together as neighbors and friends, and they have gone to summer camp together at Camp Lenape many times. This year, Marcus and Alissa are old enough to serve as junior camp counselors.

Mr. Roberts, the camp director, grew up at Camp Lenape, a former baseball camp founded by his father sixty years ago. Janice and Nate, best friends to Alissa and Marcus, are also junior camp counselors this summer, and Marcus’s sixth-grade sister, Bri, is the youngest camper this year.  Two twenty-something counselors supervise the junior counselors and the young campers.

Marcus and Nate have a tradition of sneaking out of their assigned cabins at night to go adventuring in the woods around Camp Lenape. This summer will be no different. The two junior counselors have as their goal to explore a cottage located four miles into the woods and said to be haunted by Mr. Roberts’ dead father.

What starts out as a lark turns sinister when the boys witness two strange men invading the camp, and they barely escape when the men pursue them in the woods.

Worse yet, when daylight arrives the next morning, Bri is missing — and the stories being circulated by the adults at the camp simply do not add up.

This is an excellent YA book, dealing with heroic teenage adventurers along with a theme of “growing our personal character.” The solving of a mystery and the suspenseful battle with the ultimate bad guys are exciting and full of action.

Beneath and beside the mystery, action, and adventure, the campers and junior counselors explore…

… being friends with people different from yourself,

… going through experiences that test our personal character,

… when snitching is actually “doing the right thing,”

… what to do when friends urge you to join them in cheating at school,

… how to learn from one’s mistakes, and

…what qualities to really value in a friend.

Timothy R. Baldwin has crafted an entertaining and edifying novel that readers from middle school to adult will enjoy. A message of thanks goes out from this reader to all those middle school students of his who kept urging Mr. Baldwin to write a book.

I give this YA novel five stars out of five. Recommended.

Camp Lenape by Timothy R. Baldwin, is available on AMAZON. Follow Timothy on his Amazon Author page.

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