The cover of The Ojja-Wojja by Magdalene Visaggio. The red-and-black cover depicts two girls in a swirl of tree branches and papers blowing in a violent wind.
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Friday, July 18 – The Ojja-Wojja

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Happy Friday, my fellow bookworms! Today was what we at Symphony Space call a boo/yay: boo because it’s our last day at camp together for the whole summer, and yay because it was such a wonderful way to conclude the 2025 camp session. The campers shared amazing pieces about mysterious creatures, competitive job interviews, road trip stand-offs, and so much more – and managed to squeeze in one last round of Mafia for all the marbles. Desperate for all the details? Read on!

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The cover of A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe by Mahogany L. Browne. The cover depicts a brownstone building against a blue sky.
Posted in daily blog

Thursday, July 17 – A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe

Posted on by thaliabookclubcamp

We had yet another amazing day at camp today! Once everyone had arrived, we started off the morning with an activity related to today’s book, A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe by Mahogany L. Browne. The book is about the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on a group of people living in New York City, and begins with a teenager’s short story about a disastrous imaginary pandemic. In that spirit, our activity asked campers to write or draw a story or scene about how a disaster impacts a community. We heard a hilarious but tragic story about an invasion of tickle geese and received a detailed description of a drawing of Maui watersliding down a volcano. We have so many talented campers!

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The cover of Impossible Escape by Steve Sheinkin. A boy and girl embrace, superimposed over the horizon with the smaller silhouette of a person running below them.
Posted in daily blog

Wednesday, July 16 – Impossible Escape

Posted on by thaliabookclubcamp

Today’s guest author was Steve Sheinkin, who came to discuss his harrowing non-fiction book Impossible Escape. Impossible Escape tells the true stories of several Jewish people who were able to survive the holocaust. The stories that the book tells are of Rudolf “Rudi” Vrba, who escaped Auschwitz and became one of the first whistleblowers to tell the world the truth about the atrocities happening at the death camp, and Gerta Sidonová, who with various escapes of her own was able to avoid being taken to a concentration camp. 

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Monday, July 14 – This Poison Heart

Posted on by thaliabookclubcamp

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the camp blog! It’s Week 2, and we spent a wonderful day together catching up with familiar faces and getting to know our first-time campers. It was a day full of icebreakers, old favorite games like Capture the Flag and Mafia, and lots of poisonous plants. Pro tip: do not accept any houseplants from our campers. Read on for the full recap!

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Posted in FYI

All About Week 2!

Posted on by thaliabookclubcamp

Happy Saturday, my fellow eager readers! Our first week of Camp 2025 just flew by in a rush of treasure-hunting, fossil-examining, letter-writing, cryptid-creating, and, of course, endless rounds of Capture the Flag and Werewolf and The Big Wind Blows. We’re so grateful to our guest authors for their time, effort, and enthusiasm, and miss our Week 1 campers already! But a whole new week of camp awaits us, and we know our returning campers in Week 2 are just as excited as we are to be back at Symphony Space. Just can’t stand the wait? Here’s a preview of our featured books in Week 2 to tide you over!

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