Music Camp (Penny Tangey, UQP)

Penny Tangey (Granbad, As Fast As I Can) returns to middle grade with Music Camp, a story set during a selective five-day interschool music camp. Miley lives with her mum in a caravan and plays the recorder, which she insists is a serious musical instrument. Juliet has recently lost her father, a great musician, and is dedicated to playing the flute. Though poles apart in life experience and musical taste, the two girls – along with a cabin full of woodwind players and the rest of the orchestra – develop their performance skills, teamwork, and unexpected friendships over the course of the camp. Told in alternating perspectives, Miley and Juliet’s voices contrast in register and vocabulary, which offers young readers a rewarding mix of accessible and more advanced language. The story explores themes of love and dedication to music, camp, class, crushes, newfound independence and anxiety. While Music Camp is about music and orchestras, it is also largely a work of climate fiction. The climate issues are at first nuanced, with teachers and students discussing the problems with a large gas company sponsoring the music camp and Miley’s scholarship. However, the issue becomes somewhat forceful as a climate disaster prevents the young musicians from performing at the end of their music camp. For readers of Nova Weetman, Fiona Hardy and Bren MacDibble.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Clare Millar is a writer, editor and children's bookseller. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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