Middle Grade Sidekick Short Review: Camp Frenemies (2025) by Liz Montague

cover image of Camp Frenemies by Liz Montague, published by Random House Studio, 2025.

The Basics

Page Length: 260

Grade Reading Level: 3+

Target Audience Age: 8-12

Goodreads Score: 3.64 out of 5

Buy it HERE

Setting: Contemporary sleepaway summer camp, Camp Chordata

Genre: Middle Grade Graphic Novel, Contemporary Fiction

Topics: Summer Camp, Friendship, Anxiety, Bullying, Rivalry, Confidence, Humor

Plot: After Beatrice’s teacher sends a note home saying she has trouble “socializing” with the other kids in her sixth-grade class, her dad decides to send her to a sleepaway summer camp called Camp Chordata. This feels like a daunting challenge for Bea, since the only “people” she really talks to are her stuffed animals—mainly her stuffed rabbit, Roger.

Her dad promises that if she lasts the whole week and still hates it, she’ll never have to go back. Determined to prove she can do it, Bea (and Roger) set out to make it through the entire camp experience. She is assigned to the Tadpole cabin, where she quickly discovers that one of her bunkmates is not a fan of Roger, and some of the other girls seem more interested in being “cool” than being themselves.

Read to find out how Bea manages to juggle Roger, mean girls, popularity, and even a camp crush all at the same time. Will she make it through the week like she promised? Will she ever be able to make friends? And will she find the courage to step out of her comfort zone and rely less on Roger?

You might like this book if you like:

• Summer camp/camping activities: campfires, canoeing, nature walks, crafting, team building games

• Soccer

• Drawing cartoons/doodling

• Books like: Smile, Real Friends, Chiggers, The Tryout, Awkward, Drama, Camp, Lumberjanes

• Shows likes: Bunk'd, The Babysitters Club (also a book series), Julie and the Phantoms, Andi Mack, Malory Towers

• Movies like: The Parent Trap, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (also a book), Troop Zero, Inside Out, Turning Red

  
  

Other books written by this author: Maybe an Artist, The Equinox Test (School for Unusual Magic #1)

Content

• Language: None

• Sex/Romance: The main character has a crush on a boy at summer camp.

• Violence/Scariness: None. The main character is away from home for the first time on her own. Another character gets lost/stuck while canoeing on a lake and has to be rescued.

• Drinking/Smoking/Drugs: None

Book Talk Read Aloud Section

*What is a book talk? (Watch a how to video here. Read my blog post here)

If you have the physical book, read chapter 1, pages 1-8

If you don't, read the same pages in the reading sample here.

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Used this book in your classroom? Tell us how in the comments!

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