A review by vickylovesreading
Secrets of Camp Whatever Vol. 1 by Chris Grine

4.0

Eleven year old Willow’s family are moving to a new town and it just seems plain weird. As a way to get to know some of the local children, her parents send her to the bizarre summer camp that her dad used to go to. Puzzling and spooky happenings soon arise and Willow becomes embroiled in a mystery like no other. She has to deal with bigfoot, talking gnomes and fantastical creatures beyond her imagination.
I really enjoyed this light and fun graphic novel. The story took a little bit of time to get started, but as soon as it was going there was a good pace to it with the action represented nicely throughout with a mixture of textless panels and sound effects. This graphic novel really embraced the traditional spooky summer camp mystery and had a really Scooby-Doo vibe that I found engaging and I’m sure many kids will too.
The cast of characters are fun and likeable too. The main character Willow is an excellent example of deaf representation and I particularly liked the part in which this was portrayed through textless speech bubbles representing Willow’s understanding of the world around her when her hearing aids were out of battery. This would make a fantastic opportunity for a discussion about how we experience the world, especially how much we often rely on our senses. Antagonist Mr Tooter was suspicious and unlikeable, but in a good way! Exactly as you’d want him to be. Also, Toast the gnome added an excellent dash of humour into this spooky graphic novel.
Bring on volume 2! I give Secrets of Camp Whatever 4 out of 5 stars.
Thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for providing an e-book review copy.