Review
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Title: Girls Camp Made Easy
Author: Vickie Hacking
Publisher: Cedar Fort
Genre: Nonfiction
Year Published: 2008
Number of Pages: 105
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-59955-121-0
Price: $12.99

Reviewed by Karen Hamilton

If you have been assigned the terrifying task of organizing and managing a bunch of girls for a week long camping trip, this is a book for you. It has everything you need to plan a successful camping trip from the practical to the fun and everything in between. Girl's Camp deals with "everyday" life as well as "spiritual" life, and this book addresses both issues.

In this book a leader will be lead step-by-step along the planning route to a fun camping experience. It starts with pre-camp ideas and builds from there. This includes get-to-know-you activities to rule making, which everyone should be able to live with. Planning is key to any successful event and this includes camp.

Since themes that are fun and inviting are hard to come by, the author has wisely dedicated a whole chapter to the subject. Creative ideas on how to make the camp experience more fun and memorable without being too time consuming are also included. Some of the ideas are P.I.T (Princesses in Training), Bee Keepers (based on Gordon B. Hinckley’s 6 be’s), B.U.G.S. (Bringing Upright Girls to the Savior) and this is only a small sampling of the ideas. I found this chapter particularly interesting and fun.

For those of you with little experience, you may be surprised to find out that girls can eat a lot of food in a group setting; yet don’t appear to do so. There are menu ideas and recipes that are easy to increase in volume, depending on the need of a group. This book covers basic Dutch Oven, Campfire and Box Oven cooking. Also there is a section on simple recipes. There is something for everyone, including the picky eater.

To obtain a great camp experience you need a schedule and opportunities to learn new things, as well as enjoy the outdoors. The author includes a basic schedule and certification tables for each year of camping. These are handier to use during camp and more convenient than the big binder that this information usually comes in.

This is a handy reference guide for leaders of Girl’s Camp to have. It will make the planning and execution of that plan much easier, the memories will be better for the stress free-camping experience. This book could help leaders preparing a camp experience for both girls and for family camping trips.