Mother-Daughter Book Camp
Page 25
Author’s Note
Never say never again, right?
After I finished writing Wish You Were Eyre, the sixth Mother-Daughter Book Club story, I was sure I was done—although not in a “never again” way, but simply in an “I don’t have any more ideas worth writing” way.
And then, unexpectedly, many months later, I got another idea.
Writing often works that way.
And now here we are with Mother-Daughter Book Camp, the seventh and (really truly) final installment in the series. This one was a sheer joy to write on so many levels. First and foremost, it allowed me to introduce you to yet another of my favorite classic novels, Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s Understood Betsy. I still remember stumbling upon this book as a young reader and being drawn in from the very first line, when I felt a shiver of delight at being addressed directly by the author.
Writing Mother-Daughter Book Camp also gave me the bittersweet pleasure of spending many months again with “my” girls—and I hope I’ve given Emma, Jess, Cassidy, Megan, and Becca the send-off they deserve.
And finally, writing this book transported me both emotionally and physically back to my own summer camp experiences on the shores of Long Lake in Maine.
I was twelve the first time I went to sleep-away camp. Homesick doesn’t begin to describe my initial misery. I was definitely a “trembling leaf,” as Sergeant Marge so colorfully puts it! Like Emma, my favorite part of camp was rest hour, as that was the only time during the day when I could retreat into the familiar comfort and safety of a book.
The plague of homesickness had a silver lining, as it turned out: it launched my career as a writer. Because in addition to reading during rest hour to console myself, I also started writing. By the end of that summer, I had a complete handwritten manuscript that clocked in at over a hundred pages. More important though, writing the story had been enormously fun. (In fact, camp itself ended up being enormously fun.) From that time on I knew I wanted to be an author. So thank you, Camp Newfound—and specifically the upper bunk along the back wall of Twin Pines—for nurturing a writer!
I have a bouquet of thanks to offer—to my husband, Steve, always and forever; to Kristin Ostby, my brilliant and delightful editor at Simon & Schuster, who humored me when I turned up on her doorstep with this idea and helped shepherd it to completion; to Jonatha Wey and Bonnie Bower and Anne Wold for generously sharing their memories of camp with me; to Marjorie Kehe, my partner in crime on our adventure in Maine; to Cyn Keith, the Thelma to my Ethel one summer long ago; and to camp friends old and new, especially Susan Newbold and Michele Parsons, who gave me the gift of an artist-in-residence writing retreat.
Here’s a funny story for you from that autumn retreat. I was staying in one of the cabins at the neighboring boys’ camp, which is located on a hill above the lake. Like many of the other guests, I decided to keep my swimsuit and towel in one of the cubies (they really exist!) down at Camp Newfound, so I’d be ready if I wanted to swim. I randomly stashed my stuff and didn’t think any more of it until a few days later, when we finally had an afternoon warm enough to venture into the water. I went into the cubie house (Primporium, in case you’re wondering) to change, and was absently reading the names of generations of girls written on the walls when I spotted it: Heather Vogel was here. I couldn’t believe it—I’d accidentally chosen my old cubie!
Or maybe not accidentally. Call it muscle memory, call it serendipity, call it the ties that bind—the past is always just around the corner, waiting for us to step back into it.
Finally, my deepest and most heartfelt thanks to you, dear reader, for being my traveling companion as we’ve journeyed together through this series of books. We’ve had fun, haven’t we? One thing is for sure—I couldn’t have done it without you!
Heather Vogel Frederick is the award-winning author of the Mother-Daughter Book Club series, the Patience Goodspeed books, the Spy Mice series, Once Upon a Toad, and Absolutely Truly. She and her family live near Boston. You can learn more about the author and her books at heathervogelfrederick.com.
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ALSO BY HEATHER VOGEL FREDERICK
THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOOK CLUB SERIES
The Mother-Daughter Book Club
Much Ado About Anne
Dear Pen Pal
Pies & Prejudice
Home for the Holidays
Wish You Were Eyre
THE SPY MICE TRILOGY
Spy Mice: The Black Paw
Spy Mice: For Your Paws Only
Spy Mice: Goldwhiskers
Once Upon a Toad
The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed
The Education of Patience Goodspeed
Absolutely Truly
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2016 by Heather Vogel Frederick
Jacket photograph copyright © 2016 by Michael Frost
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Frederick, Heather Vogel, author.
Title: Mother-daughter book camp / Heather Vogel Frederick.
Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young
Readers, [2016] | Series: Mother-daughter book club | Summary: Emma, Jess,
Megan, Becca, and Cassidy go to Camp Lovejoy in New Hampshire to serve as counselors and when some of the young campers are stricken with homesickness, the friends decide to start a summer camp book club.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015021613| ISBN 9781442471832 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781442471849 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442471856 (eBook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | Camps—Fiction. |
Clubs—Fiction. | Books and reading—Fiction. | New Hampshire—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.F87217 Mom 2016 |
DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015021613
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