Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an e-galley of this book.

I enjoyed this one so much! Both Kai (E/Em/Eir) and Abigail (She/Her/Hers) were terrific characters that I rooted for during two weeks at Camp QUILTBAG, a summer camp for LGBTQ+ youth in Minnesota.

Kai is nonbinary, and e is a former gymnast turned parkour athlete. E comes to camp with a shoulder injury and befriends eir's cabin mates as well as Abigail, who is in another cabin. Kai develops a crush on a fellow camper, and also learns more about eir own Jewish background from this other camper.

Abigail is a lesbian who has crushes on older women such as Laura Dern in Jurassic Park. She is shy and wants to learn confidence from Kai and her cabin mates. Abigail was outed and bullied from her former best friend, and longs to be accepted for who she is.

The camp itself was great. It was inclusive and welcoming, and also had an incredibly diverse group of campers and counselors, with varying identities and pronouns. A lot of the plot centered around a competition between cabins, with the winner awarded the opportunity to change the name of the camp to be inclusive of all identities.

I would recommend this to all middle grade readers, ages 4th-8th grade. Be sure to check the content warnings.

It's a book that I can absolutely see children, tweens, and teens relating to. I'm an adult and I found a lot of it relatable and wish it was something that I'd read as a child. I know young readers will see themselves in this book and take comfort in that. It's a little twee but I think that's for the best given the subject matter. I'd rather it be overtly wholesome while showing negatives and moments of opression, homophobia, and transphobia in the past rather than show it in this particular book. I think young readers need more books like this that have an emphasis on community building and healing.

"Things change after you come out," says a character in Camp QUILTBAG, which is achingly true for two LGBTQ+ kids in this important middlegrade novel by Nicole Melleby and A.J. Sass, arriving in March 2023. While their schoolmates at home aren't ready or willing to accept them as they are, thirteen-year-old Kai and twelve-year-old Abigail find that things start getting better at a two-week retreat in the mountains of Minnesota. As they explore their identities in a safe community, where they're called by pronouns they prefer, they find love and acceptance that guides them toward being fully themselves. I can only imagine how much this book will mean to kids today and into the future.

An entertaining summer camp story told in two perspectives that explores what it’s like to be a queer kid today.

I received a free eARC of this book. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Representation matters. So does having a place and being able to connect with others at least occasionally. Summer camps that serve specific populations often provide that connection. CAMP QUILTBAG is the story of a group of LGBT+ middle school kids who connect at a camp designed just for them.

There is a lot to like about this book. A lot of kids who do not normally find representation will see themselves in this book, whether they are an agender kid who uses neopronouns, a trans, autistic, pan kid, or a kid who has crushes that their friends cannot understand.

Having said that, there are times, particularly early on, where this book feels kind of like it’s falling into the “Five Token Band” trope, specifically because it feels like it went down the list and ticked boxes and became a roll call of names and pronouns. Having said that, it gets better as the characters develop.

Possible Spoilers ahead——


There is one thing that I really, really want to see changed if this book has a new edition. And that is that obviously these kids have supportive parents. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be attending a $1000/week speciality camp that for most requires flying to get there. Therefore, it really seems a miss that only one of the parents, as far as I can tell, has made any effort to get their child out of a situation where they are facing ostracism, verbal abuse, or, in Kai’s case, actual queer bashing that has caused fairly severe injuries. As a mother, the idea that Abigail will have to go back to a Catholic school where she was outed by her former best friend and is getting homophobic content in classes from the teachers is appalling. Kai having to go back to a school where e is regularly misgendered, deadnamed, and was attacked by two of eis classmates, and, based on events in the book, it seems likely the injury will be chronic and cause long term changes in Kai’s life is even more so. Bryn is having to see himself through puberty and gender dysphoria, and isn’t comfortable even coming out at school yet. All of these kids need more than 2 weeks at camp can provide, and the fact that the book ends without addressing that really bothers me. I want a prologue zoom call, 6 weeks later, where Kai and Abigail are talking about their new schools, where they are both involved in the GSA and have friends who understand them. I want to hear that Kai is back doing Parkour and Stick is dancing, , where Bryn has an appointment with a pediatric endocrinologist and is seeing a therapist, and where Owan invites them to his upcoming Bar Mitzvah, and Juliana is talking about her Quincenera. Where things aren’t perfect, but where they’re getting better, and where those camp friendships are lasting. Because these characters deserve "it gets better" to be more than a 2 week experience, and LGBT kids need that, too.

Overall, this is a good book that deserves inclusion in schools, libraries and homes. There is no inappropriate content. I wish I were confident that it will get that chance,

Thank you to NetGalley and the authors, for this free review copy.

Nicole Melleby is a favorite middle grade author of mine (highly suggest her book The Science of Being Angry), and A.J. Sass is a new author to me! I was so excited to get approved for this, and for the chance to read it early!

This book follows our characters to a LGBTQ+ camp called Camp QUILTBAG. We see a lot of learning, loving, and mistakes in this book, and I think it is a great book for those middle grade kids, who are struggling with their feelings. It shows younger kids that it’s okay to struggle while at the same time working thru their feelings and leading more about themselves.

Camp QUILTBAG was a great book, even for adults like me. I highly suggest it and can’t wait to read more from both of these authors.

Thanks again to NetGalley and the authors, for this free review copy. 💕Camp QUILTBAG is on sale March 21, 2023.

This is the absolute best thing I have ever read! This is the middle grade story we all need! I loved the pure diversity and queer love in this story! I wish I could have gone to a camp like this when I was a kid. I really loved seeing kids this age meet each other and learn from one another. I loved how open they were to learning from each other, how they taught each other how they each felt, what pronouns they used, and so much more.

Kai and Abigail were both really great protagonists and I liked how they both came to camp having just dealt with negative reactions to their coming out at home and how now they were surrounded by people who not only understood them, but accepted them and truly knew how they felt and what they had gone through. I loved their cabins and how they all became friends with one another. I loved all the conversations in this book and how these kids were just so grand and queer <3

Middle grades are hard. Being queer in middle grades can be torture. The kids in this story are looking for friendship and acceptance and go searching for it at Camp QUILTBAG. The characters in this story are a bit superficial as an adult reader, and things come too easy for them, but as a educator who shares stories with kids this age, I totally get that kids would love this. They will look to the characters to figure out how to talk about the wor feelings and have compassion and empathy for others. I highly recommend this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

Thank you, Algonquin Young Readers, for allowing me to read Camp QUILTBAG early.

Yes, yes, and yes!!! A.J. Sass is one of my favorite middle grade authors, and this cooperation with Nicole Melleby is just fantastic! Loved, loved, loved it! Highly recommended to anyone who loves middle grade books with superb BIPOC and queer rep!

Well, here I am, writing the first official review for this book and I'm so freaking happy.

I wasn't expecting to get so emotional over this book seeing as I am 27 years old and this book it's a middle grade summer camp book about 12-year-olds but from the second I saw this cover I knew this was going to be a good one.

Camp QUILTBAG is about a queer summer camps in Minnesota and kids from all over the country come to it. It's a 2-week summer camp and there is such a wide range of all sorts of kids of all different types of identities and representation at the camp.

Our first main character is Abigail (she/her/hers) who is pretty sure that she is a lesbian but she can't quite say the word yet. She goes to a Catholic school and has a crush on her best friend Stacy's mom (The millennial in me the absolutely loved this reference 😂) when Stacy found out about Abigail's crush, she was really really mean about it and Abigail is determined to find somewhere that she can safely explore her queer identity and maybe find some friends and so she starts searching out and finds camp QUILTBAG.

Then we have Kai (e/eir/em). Kai has been struggling with eir new pronouns, not necessarily the pronouns themselves but having people respect em. E didn't want to go to camp and was perfectly content to hang out with eir friends doing parkour but e finds out that maybe there's more to camp than e thought, and maybe a boy to crush on as well.

The majority of this book takes place at camp and we see the two of them get put into their cabins and begin to form friendships with their cabin mates. The whole camp is doing a sort of competition and Abigail and Kai form a sort of alliance. I loved all of the secondary characters, especially Bryn and Oren. We see Abigail and Kai make friendships and struggle to be confident and all of their feelings, emotions, and experiences.

At it'sheart this book is about acceptance and learning that even if you are not in a safe space in your day-to-day life, there is a safe community for you and a community that will welcome you with open arms. There are people who love you and accept you and want you to be happy no matter what. There are people who will always respect your name and pronouns and identity because that is the absolute bare minimum that we deserve. It is about how even if we aren't able to be immersed in this safe found family everyday, our community is still there for us and will help us and support us as we find our way. I think that this is an exceptionally important story for young queer kids to have access to.

I didn't cry while I was reading the book but I did cry at the end and when I finished because I cannot even imagine having such a safe space as a kid and I am so so happy that places like Camp QUILTBAG really do exist and there really are camps full of queer kids who are allowed to just exist and be exactly who they are.

A SAMPLING of the representation on page: lesbian, queer, nonbinary, trans, gay, bisexual, pansexual autistic, Jewish, Black, Latine, white. (This is just a handful of rep that I can remember off the top of my head)

I do wish there was more prominent aspec rep, even if one of the kids in the cabins mentioned it vs a small reference to a kid making an ace bracelet. A lot of this is focused on crushes, and while that's totally valid and awesome, it would've been extra cool to see some additional aro or ace rep. Also would've loved to see a fat camper or two or perhaps some conversations about disability and access to camp. But those are really my only comments.