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" Laney Parker, the heroine of Julie Kraut&amp;#039;s Slept Away, plans on spending her summer like any other normal high schooler who has just spent the past nine months stressing out about her GPA: doing nothing. But her scheme goes seriously awry when her mom&amp;#039;s midlife crisis convinces her to sign her daughter up for sleep away camp so that Laney can get out of the city and bond with nature. Deprived of the comforts of civilization and surrounded by dorks that dub her the &amp;quot;uncool one,&amp;quot; how will Laney find her way out of the woods and back to Manhattan? Will she drown in a canoeing accident? Die of embarrassment at the way she looks in a one-piece bathing suit? Or will she live to learn that geeky just might be the new cool? Kraut&amp;#039;s prose is snappy and witty, and Laney&amp;#039;s puns will either have you bursting with laughter or groaning at their cheesiness, but it&amp;#039;s a delight either way. Let&amp;#039;s face it, the hours of lying in the sun becoming a roasted vegetable that seemed so appealing while cramming for final exams get boring after two days. So beat summer boredom with this fun read! If you plan on setting out on your summer-camp adventure, check out the author&amp;#039;s personal advice below.  5 Tips for Surviving Sleep Away Camp By Julie Kraut 1) Never Say No Camp is going to be full of first times, new experiences, and a lot of stuff that may seem weird at first. (Um, bug juice?) Trying new stuff is a huge part of camp, so don&amp;#039;t let &amp;quot;no&amp;quot; be your first reaction to anything foreign. Go ahead and give jazzy kickball a try, scream something about camp spirit across the mess hall, and try that pike dive in the deep end. If I hadn&amp;#039;t been open to new things when I was a camper, I never would have discovered the pure joy that is a chocolate sandwich (white bread, butter, and chocolate milk mix), and I can&amp;#039;t even imagine my life now without that discovery.  2) Okay, Sometimes Say No Yes, camp is about trying new things, but it&amp;#039;s also about having a good time. If you&amp;#039;re really not feeling something, don&amp;#039;t be afraid to say so. When I was a camper, mountain biking was the coolest elective activity. I was apprehensive about trying it, but I still signed up. I wound up getting the bike seat tangled up in my shorts, falling off the bike, face planting into the forest floor, and limping the rest of the way down the mountain. For my next elective period, I walked right by the mountain bikes and headed straight to ceramics.  3) Be Nice to the New Girl Sure, she may seem quiet and weird and on the verge of tears, and that doesn&amp;#039;t exactly scream &amp;quot;New BFF.&amp;quot; But put yourself in her flip-flops. She&amp;#039;s facing four to eight weeks of being away from home for the first time and has no idea what&amp;#039;s in store for her. And karma will get you back for this big time, because new girls always have mega overly-concerned moms who send the best care packages. So for the simple price of making a new friend, you&amp;#039;ll also get dibs on a pan of homemade brownies when the canteen has run out of everything but Good &amp;amp;amp; Plentys.  4) Keep Busy Before you go to camp, you might think homesickness is like the tooth fairy of illnesses \u2014 it doesn&amp;#039;t really exist. But homesickness isn&amp;#039;t a myth. Everyone gets it, even the counselors. While you can&amp;#039;t avoid homesickness completely, you can minimize it by keeping yourself busy. Try to cut back on down time. For example, if there&amp;#039;s a choice between hanging in your bunk for an hour or trying out the new ropes course set-up, go for the ropes course. There&amp;#039;s no way you&amp;#039;ll be missing your puppy or wishing you were at your cousin&amp;#039;s annual Fourth of July barbeque when you&amp;#039;re walking a tightrope between two pine trees.  5) Don&amp;#039;t Forget to Remember Take lots of pictures. As much as pictures of your family and friends from home are important when you&amp;#039;re at camp, pictures of your camp friends are going to make you smile when you get home. And do your future self a favor, label the pictures with the names of the people in the photos and the stuff you&amp;#039;re doing in them right away. I can&amp;#039;t tell you how many old camp buds I wish I could Facebook stalk if I just could remember their last name. And there are also a ton of pictures I have where I can&amp;#039;t figure out what the heck I was doing. Just a few labels would answer my questions: Why was my face painted blue here? Am I dressed like that as a joke? Is this seriously a flipbook of me doing the running man?  Buy Slept Away here or enter to win a copy here! Check out real girls&amp;#039; camp memories here. Check out more Summer Beach Reads here. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/a4766/slept-away/>