I'm a c0- author of this book so my review is biased, but it was messing with my percentage not reviewing this, so as a fan of my co-writer A. J. Sass, I'll focus on how endearing and wonderful his character Kai is, and how sweet of a portrayal of a queer kid trying to reestablish trust in the people around em while navigating a crush on another boy that makes em want to understant eir own Judaism a little bit more deeply is really, really sweetly done.

The cover, folks. No matter how good these two authors are, kids are going to decide whether or not to check it out giving a heavy weight to the cover, and this one is awful. So are many of Kyle Lukoff’s. Both a bummer because a strong QUILTBAG+N collection at the library is a priority of mine.

Abigail (she/her/hers) wants to go to camp to find friends, especially queer friends. She has just come out to her mom but is scared about what her friends back home will think. Kai (e/em/eir) just wants to hang out with eir parkour team and doesn't want to go to camp. Abigail and Kai make a pack at camp all while trying to navigate friendships and crushes.

This story was really cute. I appreciate the use of neopronouns and how many characters are still exploring their identity. It felt like the characters and situations were real and that kids could relate to them.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

I loved this delightful summer camp middle grade. Both MCs were learning what it means to be themselves along with the mistakes you make as you make friends and grow up. The secondary characters were delightful!

As a fellow Jurassic Park and Laura Dern fan I really loved the MCs obsession with the movie!

A new book by one of my favorite authors. Kai and Abigail were such wonderful characters and I loved their friendship. This was such a lovely book about discovering who you are and being able to truly be yourself.

Twelve-year-old Abigail (she/her/hers) is excited to attend Camp QUILTBAG for the first time. It’s an inclusive two-week long camp, where she can finally be herself. After her crush on her friend’s mom was discovered, she was teased by her friends. She hopes to discover some new friends with similar interests. Thirteen-year-old Kai (e/em/eir) is reluctant to attend Camp QUILTBAG. E would rather stay at home with eir best friend. After an incident at school left Kai with a dislocated shoulder, eir parents thought it would be a good idea to meet kids like em. Both kids went to the camp for different reasons, but learned to accept their true identities.

This was such a sweet story about an LGBTQ+ inclusive camp. I didn’t realize until I began reading that the name QUILTBAG is made of many of the letters in the LGBTQ acronym, though it left out some identities. The leader of the camp acknowledged that they should come up with an even more inclusive name. I liked the gender neutral pronouns that Kai used. Those pronouns were much easier to read than the gender neutral pronoun “they,” which can be confusing to read as it gets mixed up with the plural pronoun “they.” There was a wide variety of different gender identities and sexualities represented in this story. Every child at the camp came from a different background and experience but they were all accepted at the inclusive camp.

Camp QUILTBAG is a great LGBTQ+ middle grade story!

Thank you Algonquin Young Readers for sending me a copy of this book!

Oh, how I loved this book. I've been a longtime fan of Nicole's writing so I couldn't pass this book up even though I'd neve read anything by Sass - which I will now be remedying immediately.
Both Abigail and Kai were such incredible characters to follow. I think we all would have loved a queer camp when we were that young (and even when we*re older tbh) and I loved how we got to see these two characters make a deal with each other and blossom along the lines of their own friendship and becoming more open to others and their struggles with being queer at a young age.
Camp QUILTBAG is so affirming and encouraging, I can highly recommend sharing this with your young ones!

This is a very sweet pre-teen/teen story of friendship and identity, how to find people who love and support you for who you are, and in the process, learn to be yourself (and cope with a very hateful small minded society). A lot of kids will see themselves in these pages, whether LGBTQIA* or not, but I imagine queer and trans kids will find the story especially relatable.

This one should be hitting our shelves just in time for Pride Month. Camp QUILTBAG offers important representation for LGBTQ students and students from LGBTQ families.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this title.

I will start off by stating that I have read a few other titles by Nicole Melleby and I've absolutely loved them so I was definitely looking forward to Camp Quiltbag and no surprise to me, Melleby certainly did NOT disappoint!

This story introduced me to pronouns that I was not personally familiar with and I appreciated gaining that knowledge so that I can be more aware! I am 33 years old, but whenever I read any queer middle grade titles I feel such a tinge in my gut just wishing that growing up I could have had stories such as these, but it also makes me happy to know that kids of today's generations DO have these important stories. I may have had my identity/sexuality figured out much earlier in life if I had had more characters that I felt I could personally relate to but I just didn't have that. Although it feels a bit bittersweet to my queer adult self, my heart just beams with love for this representation. Better late than never!

This was yet another story that I DEFINITELY shed some real queer tears, but in the best way. I just adore Nicole Melleby stories and I will read anything she puts out there in to the universe always!

5 stars!

A heartfelt summery story set at a camp for queer and trans kids, Camp QUILTBAG is unique in that almost every character in the story is LGBTQIA. This offers young readers a chance to learn about other people's identities while being entertained by the plot. There's a lot to love about both main characters and their struggles. This story doesn't shy away from the reality that life can be hard for LGBTQIA kids and that likely isn't going to change just because they get to spend a few weeks at a summer camp. But while the book acknowledges this, it also gives an example of how finding a supportive space with people who get you (or are at least willing to accept you) can make you feel safer and loved. It's something to hold on to and remember when hate is encountered elsewhere. And that's a pretty important takeaway for a community that is facing a lot of hate from fellow Americans and state governments.

I thought this book was so fun! I loved the switching perspectives and how Abigail and Kai had backstories from "This is Our Rainbow." As an adult, I found the emphasis on Abigail's obsession with Laura Dern and other women over 50 hilarious for much of the book (such a random celebrity!), but I loved Lena's talk with Abigail at the end of the book about why young queer people might get crushes on people a lot older than them. I thought it was one aspect of queer identity and experience that I haven't read about before (and I read a lot of queer middle grade books). I think Lena's story and perspective will be what a lot of kids need to hear and haven't heard anywhere else before.

CW: Mentions of minor transphobic comments, microagressions and hate crime, mention of injury, bullying, homophobia, menstruation scene and illusions to gender dysphoria.

Camp QUILTBAG by A.J. Sass and Nicole Melleby has something for everyone whether you’re like me and would prefer tye-dying t-shirts opposed to kayaking and roller derby or you like ballroom dance and trivia, this middle grade book needs to be on your TBR.

Kai (e/em/eirs) and Abigail (she/her/hers) are new campers at Camp QUILTBAG, a camp for queer and trans kids. Both kids are at camp for different reasons. Abigail wants to meet kids like her (she’s a lesbian who loves Jurassic Park, Laura Dern especially) after her friends at her Catholic school tease and shut her out for having a crush on Stacey’s mom. And Kai would rather be at home with eir friends doing parkour.

Filled with queer and trans joy plus queer and trans kids getting into competitive rivalries and learning from their mistakes, this book truly has something for everyone. What I loved the most is how every kid is different. This book is such a great introduction into the queer and trans community for kids. As I was reading, I couldn’t help but think about how important this visibility is for kids to see neopronouns normalized and feel safe just like they would at camp.

I especially liked how it shows and tells kids you don’t have to know right away and each kid at the camp is accepting of the other and accepting of not knowing your label. Camp QUILTBAG is a safe space for LGBTQIAP+ kids and readers.

It’s a great escape but doesn’t shy away from having important conversations. One that resonated with me was Abigail talking about not feeling pride in her sexuality and feeling lonely and isolated since she doesn’t know anything about the LGBTQ+ community. But through her time at camp, that changes.

Highly recommend if you're in need of some hope, queer and trans joy and/or love books set at camp!

This book should be essential reading for middle grade readers. It gives such an important look at being part of the LGBTQIA+ community at a young age, including all the uncertainty and messiness that comes with being a pre-teen. Told from two points of view, Camp QUILTBAG does a fabulous job of representing a range of identities and backgrounds while focusing on the joys of community.

A MG book about a summer camp that is all inclusive. A few of the kids that go to the camp are just beginning to wonder about their gender and how to fit into school. Being at the inclusive camp that uses pronouns and neopronouns is supposed to be the help they need to understand what they're feeling.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this arc in exchange for my opinion.

Camp QUILTBAG is a truly delightful, and important queer middle grade novel about finding and accepting who you are. If follows Abigail, a reluctant lesbian who is desperate to go to camp and find her place, Kai, who is recovering from an injury that is related to eir use of e/em/eir pronouns at school. They arrive at Camp QUILTBAG, a camp for LGBT+ kids and immediately meet a great and diverse cast of supporting characters. They make an agreement to help each other make friends and win the camp-wide competition.

Their friendship is the heart of this and it was so sweet. Kai is like a guide/older sibling for naive and wide-eyed Abigail, and Abigail always wants to do right by Kai. The group of friends they make are also so sweet, diverse and unique. The cast is big, but they’re all so unique so young readers will have no problem remembering who’s who. I really, really loved Abigail. She feels a lot of shame for her crushes on older women (like Laura Dern) and it felt so deeply relatable. I understood her fears and her embarrassment. Kai was great too, and I love e was so sure of who e was. I think both characters are so important for young readers to read and know, and I am so glad these authors exist. I can not wait to add these titles to our library collection. And I’d like a sequel about the next summer at camp, so I’m crossing my fingers!

*Thank you to the publisher for a copy in exchange for a review*

Camp QUILTBAG follows Abigail, a 12-year-old lesbian, and Kai, a 13-year-old nonbinary teen who uses neopronouns. This is set at a queer summer camp for children and young teens aged 6-13 (or 14 I can't remember).

This is such a cute middle-grade! I wish I had this as a young teen. Seeing so many identities in a middle-grade novel be represented is amazing for questioning young teens and children in the present day. I'm so glad trans kids have characters like Kai, Juliana, and Bryn to look up to and say, 'they're like me!'.

This story is also so cute. I loved every second of it and the queer joy seen is exactly what I needed.

Even though this is a middle grade novel, I still learned things from this book. This is a book that I wish was available when I was younger. I think there are some issues discussed that could be triggering to some but I think this is an important novel. Oftentimes, people may not feel accepted and reading a book about mainly accepting characters at an LGBTQ+ camp was enjoyable to read about. I do think it goes on for a little too long. Overall, a cute novel that will, no doubt, help kids feel accepted.

What a fun read! Camp QUILTBAG by Nicole Melleby and A.J. Sass centers on a summer camp where LGBTQIA+ kids can connect with one another and have fun along the way. The book follows Abigail, a camper who is eager for camp but unsure how to make friends, and Kai, who would rather be doing parkour with eir friend at home, at least at first. Amid a scurry of fun camp shenanigans, Abigail and Kai make a pact to help one another. But this collaboration unfolds in ways that neither of them expect, and they'll have to figure out how to trust themselves and each other as they learn more about what it means to move through the world while being proud of who you are. Highly recommended for all library shelves.