Summer at Squee
by Andrea Wang
Middle School    Kokila/Penguin    320 pp.
3/24    9780593111314    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780593111321    $10.99

Phoenny, a thirteen-year-old Chinese American girl, is ecstatic to return to SCCWEE (Summertime Chinese Culture, Wellness, and Enrichment Experience)—Camp Squee for short. It is sure to be another awesome summer with her best friends, the Squad. However, new (and initially unfriendly) campers arrive who aren’t as familiar with Chinese language and culture as the Squad is; their extra numbers cause the friends to be split into different groups. Suddenly, Phee is unsure about the summer, even as she unpacks her sewing machine and shares handmade, eye-catching costumes with her friends. Nightly camper meetings lead to honest and transformative conversations about what it means to be Chinese; for example, some newcomers are adoptees living in white families with different perspectives on identity and culture. Then, internet trolls post nasty social media comments that threaten the camp, and Phee feels fragile and afraid. Wang’s tightly woven plotting and lively dialogue paint a rich portrait of the ups and downs of middle school friendships, social awkwardness, and a desperate desire to belong. Add in a few crushes, lots of hilarious camp hijinks, and an ingenious solution to the troll problem, and you have an excellent companion to Kelly Yang’s Front Desk series (Front Desk, rev. 7/18, and sequels) and Grace Lin’s Pacy Lin series (The Year of the Dog, rev. 3/06, and sequels).

From the May/June 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.