No Boys Allowed (Camp Sunnyside Friends) - Softcover

Grade 3-5-- In No Boys Allowed , the first in the series, readers meet five friends as they prepare to return to camp the summer they are 11 years old. The girls are devastated to learn that boys from a nearby camp will be sharing their camp until repairs from a fire can be made. In spite of a vow to ignore the boys, each girl finds one boy who becomes a special friend, and the girls discover that boys are human beings after all. In Cabin Six Plays Cupid, the same five campers discover that their counselor, Carolyn, has broken up with her boyfriend, and they plot various ways to try and get the two back together again. They learn that romance novels are not the best guides to human relationships, and that trying to manipulate other people's lives can backfire and cause real pain. The focus here is on the surface of the life at camp. Readers see only very slightly beyond to the personal background of each girl. The audience for these books will be fairly limited. Girls who are past the "I hate boys" stage, or never really went through it, will find the whole plot of No Boys Allowed rather thin and shallow. The entire focus of Cabin Six Plays Cupid is on the lack of romance between Carolyn and Teddy, and is not strong enough to sustain interest throughout the story. The remaining audience might be girls who enjoy stories about camp, regardless of plot.
- Candy Colborn, Cottonwood Elementary School, Englewood, CO
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In the first book of the Camp Sunnyside Friends series, Katie, Trina, Megan, Sarah, and Erin are back at the all-girls camp, a haven from their brothers and the boys at school. But this year there is bad news: the boys from Camp Eagle will be staying at Sunnyside, too, until the fire damage to their camp is repaired. The Cabin Six girls are outraged and determined to rid Sunnyside of the boys. At first Katie, the ringleader, proposes confrontational tactics--such as picketing. But when the camp leader makes it clear that she doesn't approve, the girls turn to more subtle techniques, such as the silent treatment. At first Katie's followers are gung ho about their ideas, but they soon learn that even well-intentioned plans can be hard to carry out. Although Kaye's characters are interesting and likable, they could star in any of a number of other unexceptional series now available. And the book is tediously slow--it takes the girls far too long to figure out that their plan is not working, and Cabin Six's continued outrage at the Camp Eagle boys is implausible. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.