Mooky Hooper is eleven years old, and off to summer camp for the first time. Unfortunately, she soon discovers that her mother, Caroline Goodman, now a CNN television journalist, was in her day the very best at any camp activity Mooky might participate in. In the history of Camp Cartwright. With her name and the relevant details of her accomplishments posted. And the camp director, Director Sue, in her enthusiasm at having Caroline Goodman's daughter at the camp, makes sure everyone knows it.

Mooky doesn't necessarily help herself by deciding that she's going to instead concentrate on emulating accomplishments of her mother that she's more familiar and comfortable with--her journalistic accomplishments. It's not long before she's learned of a camper who disappeared from the camp thirty years earlier, and connects this to the camp legend of the Lady of the Lake. She starts investigating. In theory she knows she should be calm and discreet in doing this; in practice, she's eleven, and doesn't always manage to do that.

Mooky and her fellow campers are convincingly real kids, and despite herself, Mooky gradually makes friends over the course of the summer. In a pattern I recall from my own childhood, she finds it easier to make friends with a few sympathetic adults than with other kids, but she does make some friends her own age, too. Being a smart kid unencumbered by an adult's or older kid's experience of the real world, she easily finds evidence for a truly wild conspiracy theory--while also finding evidence that also leads her to a quite real secret.

It's an entertaining and fun, but also thoughtful and kind, story.

This is set in the 2000s, while the Iraq war is ongoing. Because Caroline Goodman is a CNN journalist, this gets referenced from time to time. I've seen a few reviews that have reacted badly to this as "Politics!", but really, no. Events get referred to. There's no real discussion of them.

All in all, very enjoyable.

This is part of the new Audible Plus program, which means I didn't pay for it, and I'm reviewing it voluntarily. ( )

Bait & Switch, But Good Fun
Review of the Audible Original audiobook Part 1 (August 2020)

I can't find any fault with this smart comedy which has a precocious 11-year-old budding journalist investigating a mystery at her summer camp. The voice performances are excellent, especially that of Sunny Sandler (daughter of Adam Sandler) in the lead role of Mookie Hooper. The writing is funny and clever, which brings up the question of the author credit.

The actual writer is Boco Haft, and Jamie Lee-Curtis is really only the "co-creator" in the sense that she initiated and executive produced the audiobook recording. The inspiration for the piece came from a long unsent letter from camp that Haft had written to her god-mother Curtis many years ago. When the letter was discovered and finally sent, Curtis encouraged Haft to take the idea and expand it into a full audiobook. Marketing being what it is, Audible and others have marketed this with Jamie Lee Curtis having the lead credit, although a close examination of the cover does show the "written by Boco Haft" credit.

Anyway, that doesn't detract from the entertainment value. It is just a shame that young writer Haft doesn't get the publicity of her first author credit.

The piece is dated in 2005 to avoid modern day issues of social media, but that does mean some of pop-culture and political references will fly over the heads of the pre-teen target audience. Parents will find it extra entertaining exactly for those reasons though, but will likely have to regularly explain some of the throwaway lines.

Letters From Camp was one of the eleven free Audible Original audiobooks for members in August 2020. It was released in two parts (August 4 and August 18, 2020) and is listed on Library Thing as two separate books.

Trivia and Links
There are several articles about the genesis of the project that interview Jamie Lee Curtis and Boco Haft and two of those can be read here and here. ( )