Schneider, Mindy 1961-

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Schneider, Mindy 1961-

PERSONAL:

Born 1961.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA. Agent—Dan Lazar, Writers House, 21 W. 26th St., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER:

Writer. Los Angeles, CA, Department of Recreation and Parks, staff member.

WRITINGS:

Not a Happy Camper: A Memoir, Grove Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Work represented in anthologies, including Life's a Stitch.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mindy Schneider is a writer who has worked on sitcom scripts and whose first book, Not a Happy Camper: A Memoir, documents her year at camp at the age of thirteen in 1974. "The author recalls her teenage angst and puppy love days with a voice that rings perfectly true," observed a reviewer for the Brown BookLoft Web site. Mindy had attended camp twice before, but her parents had selected them, and she found the other campers to be snobby. This time, she chose Camp Kin-A-Hurra in Maine, a camp for Jewish girls where she hoped to find a first boyfriend from among the campers at the boys' camp on the other side of the lake. The camp's name came from a Yiddish expression that is used to ward off the evil eye. Saul Rattner, the owner of Kin-A-Hurra, came to the Schneider home to pitch the camp, with its international staff, heated dormitories, and other amenities. He told them that Moshe Dayan had taught archery at the camp and that Golda Meir had also been a counselor. Mindy later learned that the story was not true but that, in fact, Israeli freedom fighters had attended long ago.

When Mindy arrived from New Jersey, she discovered that Saul had exaggerated in other ways. The photographs he had shown them were actually of a neighboring camp. The bunks were dirty, and the campers were fed terrible food by a prison cook. It rained nearly every day. She didn't mind that there really were few activities, however, especially when the girls' toilets were out of order, necessitating the use of the boys' facilities, or when the transportation turned out to be a broken-down station wagon called the Green Truck. They did go on an overnight trip carrying food that consisted of commercial-size cans of peach nectar, chicken parts, and raw carrots, and they went shopping at the local junk store. Her bunkmates were Autumn Evening Schwartz, who communed with the dead, and Betty Gilbert, who spent the summer reading and sleepwalking. Dana played guitar and sang, and their counselor, Maddy, was anorexic and lived on salted soybeans and Pep-O-Mint Lifesavers. Mindy writes of being overweight, of her large nose and of chasing after the tall and cute Kenny. It was Phil, however, who liked her and was nice to her, who offered the first kiss.

Each of the chapters begins with a camp song and a photograph. Schneider includes anecdotes about her family, such as the fact that her mother begged steak scraps from the butcher while the family ate hamburger. Camp anecdotes include Schneider stepping on a beehive and falling out of a canoe. "Her tale of how she pursued Kenny, while Kenny pursued Dana, while Dana pursued Aaron, while Phil pursued her, is the stuff of sitcoms," commented Hilary Daninhirsch, who reviewed the book for BookLoons online. "This gem of a book is funny, honest, and wry."

Bonnie reviewed the memoir for the Blogcritics Web site, noting that it really isn't about going to camp. "It is a book about what it means to be a thirteen-year-old girl, too old to be a blank slate and too young to be sure of yourself. Rather than documenting singalongs and gimp bracelets and deep moments of oneness with nature, Schneider evokes Kin-A-Hurra's structurelessness, which leaves the girls focused on themselves. Freed from parents and plans, the girls are alone, together, in the wilderness of adolescence."

In the last chapter Schneider writes about a 1997 reunion that was held after Kin-A-Hurra closed. Five hundred campers returned to Lake Wally. Schneider notes that most came alone, leaving their spouses behind, "knowing full well they just wouldn't get it, this thing we once belonged to, this cult we can never leave."