Lumberjanes: Campfire Songs is a quick and fun collection of six short stories. They live up to any Lumberjanes fan’s expectations for witty tales of friendship with a good dose of fantasy mixed into each. Jo, April, Mal, Molly and Ripley return in this interesting compilation of distinctive art and writing styles about making true connections with others, whether they be supernatural beings or regular old human beings.
The first narrative has all the girls planning a masquerade dance while simultaneously the forest faeries are planning a party of their own. Next we have a short and sweet underwater adventure with their racoon, Bubbles. Then the girls get stuck inside during a horrible rainstorm, dying of boredom when a litter of adorable green kittens appears! In “Weather Woes”, the girls have to help fix the eYeti’s generator as panic is setting in. Liz Prince’s “Some En-Haunted Evening” gives readers a funny murder mystery story, complete with ghosts. Lastly, we have a sepia-colored short story about scary bears that turn out to be more familiar than the girls initially realize.
Our Roanoke scouts are featured in different art styles in each comic. Six artists created the wonderful panels: Maddi Gonzalez, Brittney Williams, Alexa Bosy, Mari Costa, Kat Leyh and Brooklyn Allen. Each one of these talented individuals makes sure that they stay true to the original design of the series, yet you can see each one’s personal flair in the images. You can see artistic themes through the stories, like all the greens used in the story “Somewhere That’s Green” or the sepia tones used in “A Memory”. This grabs the reader’s attention as it’s clear that there’s a unique tone being set. Lumberjanes fans will love the comic gallery section at the end, which are masterpieces of detail representing not only the stories but the emotions evoked.
An amazing group of creators have come together to contribute to all of these stories, and they are easy to read one after the other. Expect the same type of humorous writing with good morals secretly woven into the stories as you would with any other volume in this series. The introduction and concluding paragraphs are beautifully written about having a realistic lifelong perspective on friendships. Some friends are for life, some aren’t, and some you meet later on, and that’s all perfectly okay! This is a great lesson to learn as young as possible.
Overall, this collection is well written and well put together. And another benefit of adding it to a library collection is that it stands alone, outside of the continuity of the main narrative. The title doesn’t add anything to the complexity of the characters developing or to their relationships with one another in the main narrative. Therefore, this is a great recommendation for both those newer to the series and to devoted fans who are waiting for the next Lumberjanes book to become available. I highly recommend diving into the fun at Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types!
Lumberjanes: Campfire Songs
By Nicole Andelfinger, Brittney Williams, Seanan McGuire, Mari Costa, Liz Prince, Shannon Watters
Art by Maddi Gonzalez, Brittney Williams, Alexa Bosy, Mari Costa, Kat Leyh, Brooklyn Allen
ISBN: 9781684155675
BOOM! Box, 2020
Publisher Age Rating: 9-12
Series Reading Order: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumberjanes (Wikipedia or Goodreads)
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NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13)
Character Traits: Black, Multiracial,
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