The Lightning Circle by Vikki VanSickle (If I Had a Gryphon) is a sweet, nostalgic, and evocative recollection of a heartbroken camp counselor's experience at an all-girls summer camp.
It's the summer of 2006 and 17-year-old Canadian Nora is crushed. She's "suffocating at home/ .../ where his name/ hangs heavy in the air,/ like smog," so she decides to be a counselor at an all-girls camp in West Virginia. During the day, she bonds with her new camp family but at night she still suffers from a "stupid, swollen heart." Just when Nora feels like she's found her footing at camp, a letter bearing unwanted news from the boy she's trying to forget arrives and suddenly her "throat/ eyes/ heart/ all raw." Nora turns inward, but the connections she's formed with her "summer sisters" will help her find the strength to grow through her sorrow.
This journal-like free-verse novel expertly conjures the essence of the summer camp experience while exploring self-identity and highlighting the importance of friendships. VanSickle easily elicits feelings of sisterhood and heartbreak, using picturesque, metaphoric language to express emotion ("thoughts of him/ come roaring in/ and I'm washed out to sea/ on a relentless tide/ of longing"). She plays with indentation and text color to represent multiple voices and uses word choice and line spacing to create clear imagery ("Three! Sharp! Blasts!"). Laura K. Watson (10 Hidden Heroes) complements the text with gentle black, white, and green pencil and digital sketches of the campers and nature. Together, they create a tender story that is memorable and absorbing. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader