**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

Actual rating 4.5

Chris Grine introduces a fun middle grade graphic novel surrounding a sleepaway camp and the mystical creatures of the island with the first volume of Secrets of Camp Whatever. Readers follow a group of children who are attending the camp as they find out what makes Camp Whatever particularly unique. Gnomes, a witch, a vampire, Bigfoot, and more will definitely give them an interesting week.

I absolutely loved this graphic novel. The art style and color choices all made a whimsical and fun visual experience that I have come to associate with Oni Press. I was very happy to see that Willow, our main character, provides representation for hard of hearing individuals and is seen using sign language and her hearing aids. It was fun learning the secrets of the camp along with Willow and her friends, and I am eager to see what happens next. There is clearly a lot of room for plot expansion and world expansion that Grine has set up, which is exciting for the future of the series.

I would recommend this graphic novel to anyone who is a fan of urban fantasy type stories in visual media form.

This was such a cute read.

Not only was the book filled with inclusive characters, and beautiful artwork, but I absolutely fell in love with Thatch. I just want more and more of Thatch, he's so cute.

Definitely recommend!

This review is according to my daughter....Willow moves to a new town unhappily and attends the local camp. Willow is a diverse character who wears hearing aids and does sign language. There are lots of spooky creatures around the camp...or are they? Overall a quick fun read for boys and girls.

This was a good graphic novel about a girl moving to a new town and attending summer camp on this island. There are all sorts of mysterious stuff that goes and and she is looking to get to the bottom of it. It was an enjoyable book I liked the characters.

Willow's family have moved to Nowhere and to keep her out of the way whilst they get things sorted, she is sent to Camp Whatever. But Nowhere is not your average town and Camp Whatever turns out to be very accurately named, as Willow and her camp mates soon discover.
A quirky, supernatural mystery with some great characters. I loved the artwork and thought the Willow/Thatch friendship was adorable! Will look forward to finding out more about Nowhere and its inhabitants in volume two.
Thank you to Oni press and NetGallley for the ebook review copy.

A silly, fun story about a young girl named Willow who moves to the town of Nowhere with her family and attends a summer camp called Camp Whatever. There she encounters strange, mysterious creatures who give here the best week of summer camp ever, despite the pitfalls of having a camp director who is out to hunt said creatures on the island. All in all, this is a fun book for kids. The dialogue and the storyline didn't have enough depth for me to fully enjoy, but my daughter may like reading it. (She's 9.)

This was an excellent read! I’ve already started recommending it as an upcoming graphic novel to tweens who have enjoyed Amulet and Witch Boy. And everyone wants to read more about Bigfoot right now, especially tweens.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a graphic novel where a character was hard of hearing and several characters use sign language. Representation is so important.

This was an excellent read, and I fully expect it to be popular. I know I will be recommending it and also reading a volume two if it happens.

What a scary camp it was at first. This graphic novel takes you on an island full of monsters and scary stuff that, according to the director, could get you and hurt you. The story was very entertaining; I started the book and didn’t stop until the end even though it was quite a lot of pages for a graphic novel. Willow is not always very likeable (she jumps a bit too quickly to conclusion) but she is an interesting character. She is deaf and I liked how the speech-bubbles were blank when she couldn’t hear the people talking. The others were quite nice and funny, always ready for an adventure in the woods. And the monsters… I loved the monsters; they were so cute. Moreover, I liked the artwork a lot: a bit cartoonish which made it very easy to look at and see everything with one glance. This book is the first volume of the series but there is not really a big suspense at the end, I think the second volume will just be about another adventure so don’t be afraid that this story has no ending. Overall, it was a very fun read that I would recommend to everyone, children as well as adults.
4/5

I thought this was a great spooky fun read. I like Willow as a main character. She had a hearing disability where she needed hearing aids. Plus I thought it was cool she also did sign language. I liked all of the mythical creatures we got to meet at the summer camp. The camp director got on my nerves because he was mean to all of the children and especially Willow because he thought she is def and speaks very loudly towards her. I also love the art style of the comics.

A delightful introduction to a new graphic novel series about a spooky town filled with fog and magical creatures. This first volume takes place at a summer camp on a island outside of the town, where the kids encounter and befriend all sorts of creatures, from the mysterious caretaker to Bigfoot. The main character has hearing aids, and she and a few other people use sign language.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I have always loved books about summer camp, and then combined with supernatural elements such as gnomes, werewolves, etc, well, lets just say it drew me right in. With beautiful art, an interesting rag tag band of kids, summer camp, and the supernatural, well let's just say you have a hit! Hope there will be another one.

A cute spooky adventure, that is a bit slow in places, but has enough mystery to keep your general 9 to 12 year old interested.

This is one of those narratives that pretty much completely leans on characters not talking to eachother, almost to a preposterous level.

Willow, the main character, is deaf and uses hearing aids, but this is only mentioned a couple of times - her deafness isn't her identity. I did find her bordering on the unlikeable at times, quick to jump to conclusions, and one violent encounter felt a bit uncalled for.

The art is cute, the human characters are a bit samey, the non-humans are a lot more fun and interesting.

A final thought: surely these gnomes are an evolutionary dead end..?

This was a really fun graphic novel with a really great premise.
Willow goes to Camp...Whatever which is on an island supposedly overrun with dangerous creatures. The beginning of the book when Willow first gets to camp does a great job making the island really seem creepy and haunted and spooky. I was really scared for them when the girls went into the foggy woods! After getting to know Mr. Elric, the plot goes really fast, but it's very well paced for a graphic novel and I really came to care for the group of girls in Willow's cabin.
It's usually hard for me to connect with characters in graphic novels because I feel they go so fast, but this one does such a great job of making the girls relatable, as well as the boys and adults.
In this book, Willow is hearing impaired and had hearing aids. She assumes no one will want to be friends with her because of this, but it warmed my heart when a few of the girls wanted to be her friends right away. And it felt almost typical to me that one of the adults would literally call her out and legitimately yell at her in front of everyone assuming she couldn't hear well.
All the creatures in this book were so fun, especially Toast. Each one was such a great addition to the book and I absolutely love how much of the story they ended up being involved in.

As soon as I saw the premise of this one I knew I wanted to give it a read. Spooky creepy summer camp and characters, that's right up my alley! Overall this was a super enjoyable read and I'll definitely want to pick up the next installment if/when it comes out.

In this story we follow Willow, whose pretty disgruntled about everything at the beginning. She doesn't want to go to summer camp, she doesn't like that her and her family are moving, none of it. At first Willow is a bit annoying in her attitude and behavior, she doesn't want to be there so she seems like she doesn't care about anything or anyone but herself. That does change over the span of the story as she and her new friends start to learn more about the island and its inhabitants. I did love the mythology/mystical elements that were thrown in, but did find myself somewhat wishing for more. I hope that the next volume includes more of that and expands on some of the characters we've met.

All in all this was a great spooky summer camp story that included all sorts of mythical creatures and the adventures of a ragtag group of kids as they try to solve some mysteries.

Review to come to blog/goodreads on February 2021.

A girl moves to a new place (Nowhere) and immediately is shipping to a summer camp (Camp Whatever). From there magical stories happen and adventures are aplenty.

Meet Willow, an eleven-year old deaf girl. She is NOT amused by her parents decision to move and is even less happy with the whole having to go to a camp. I can imagine. Two new things in one go? No thank you. But she soon finds out that she is in for a bit adventure and that the world is more magical and weird than she ever would have thought.

I loved seeing a deaf character in a book. It is still not something that happens a lot and so I am happy to see one each time. Because it is definitely needed. I loved seeing her use sign language and also teach her friends bits and pieces. I felt for her when the batteries were stolen (along with the snacks) and hoped that she would get new batteries soon. I loved how the illustrator/author showed us that Willow couldn't hear by making the text bubbles from others empty.

Willow was an amazing character, and I loved that she followed her own path. That she isn't afraid. That she is brave and willing to figure out the mystery. There are many scary moments coming up and she braves them all. Go go Willow. She becomes my favourite character.

I had such a big laugh that Willow and her fellow bunkmates/friends kept tricking their camp counsellor. :P

I would have liked a bit more of camp, more activities, more camp stuff. Now we didn't see a lot of it and I missed it.

The campdirector was the worst, and not just how he was acting and what his evil plans are.. but also because of how he treated Willow when he learns she is deaf (though with hearing aids she can hear enough). He keeps shouting at her and instead of listening to her when she wants to tell him that isn't necessary he just shrugs it off.
His silly way of looking didn't help either. He looked like a fatter and eviler version of Nigel Thornberry and that really isn't the image you want in your head when you are reading this book. :P It really distracted me from reading.

I loved loved loved the mystery. There is just so much happening right from the start. Not just at the camp but before Willow gets to the camp. The things that were said at restaurant or before the kids boarded the boat. You just knew that things were about to get spooky! And it did. I loved discovering more and more about the island, about what is happening there, who Elrich is, who the lunch lady is (I still call vampire :P), what is stealing the snacks, and WHY JUST WHY there are so many stone gnomes. I loved going with Willow and her friends and discover more of this island. I would have loved to see more of the book she got later on from Elrich. Maybe a few pages here and there scattered throughout the book? That would have made it all better.
There are definitely things I would like to see on the island as it feels like we only got a peek under the curtains. I want more. Some more mythology some more stories about it.

The art was OK-ish. I liked the designs on the kids, but the adults almost all seemed caricatures and it felt just very odd and strange. Was this meant to be?

The ending was good though, oh my at that shot on Willow's arm. Mm, I remember something that was said at the beginning. Does this mean something big is coming up? I wonder what is going to happen in the next volume. Since this is the first volume. Will we be spending another short few weeks at the camp? Or will we see Willow settle in this strange and magical town? I am definitely in for both.

Hear ye, hear ye! This is definitely a graphic novel you won't want to miss out on!

We start off this whimsical adventure by Willow's side, with only an eerie feeling in our gut and a flashlight in our hand to guide us through the wild ride that is 'Secrets of Camp Whatever'. Wil's parents have decided to move to (literally) Nowhere, a town where the fog has made itself a home and the forest owns every inch of land that hasn't been stolen by concrete and brick. While her family sorts out some paperwork, Wil will be spending a week at camp... Whatever? Nobody seems to be able to recall the place's name. But, as we soon get to discover, that's the least weird thing that's going on! Hairy hands that steal candy from underneath the bunks, a lake where swimming isn't allowed beyond knee-depth, a cook who is as pale as she is unarticulate in English, an elderly man whose cottage is filled with stone gnomes... Wil and her new friends Violet, Emma, and Molly, will have to find out what's really going on in Camp Whatever if they want to survive the week.

Every page of this sweet graphic novel was filled with a humming sense of forest magic, ancient lore, and thrill. Wil, the main character, is a brave and bold girl who won't stop looking for the truth until she finds it. And she was such a cheeky gal! I adored her from the moment I met her, and I really can't wait to sneak off with her again, seeking adventure, in the next volumes of this series. The storyline was cleverly put together, as well as intriguing, and there were a few plot-twist that I genuinely 'NO-YOU-DIDN'T!'-ed at.

But not even my hunger for more every time I turned a page could make me not stop to admire the artwork. Reminiscent of well-known TV shows such as Gravity Falls or Beyond The Garden Wall, Grine's style is as buzzing with energy as his mauve-haired main character. Eerie, but tender nonetheless, SoCW felt like a warm blanket around my shoulders. It's everything eleven-year-old me would've wanted, and more! Some dialogues had a few typos, mostly missing commas or misplaced fullstops. But, aside from that, there was nothing I didn't enjoy in this cute graphic novel.

I loved the idea of a strange summer camp, and this is definitely one. The story starts out as saying that the camp and the town near by are very strange, but we dont' get to learn more about the town, as we race off to the camp, and its strange stone gnomes.

In fact, we need to keep our eye on the stone gnomes.

The camp is indeed strange, with things going on that can't be explained, and that part is fun. The parts that weren't fun for me was the long bits when the characters sit around discussing how strange things are. Yeah, we get that.

And like another reviewer, I had trouble with the arts and crafts being to make dream catchers. So disrespectful.

But I did like the supernatural elements, even though some took a while to get to.

Oh, and the main character is deaf, but you don't notice until she has to speak to someone in sign language. Other than that, she has a hearing aid.

And really, the fog leeches are funny one, but not over and over again.

So, yeah, fun, in bits, and slow in others.

Honestly, if you want a good camp setting with supernatural creatures, you would be better off reading the Camp Midnight series.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

So fun to read with my child - he enjoyed it immensely and can’t wait to read the next volume in this series. We kept reading it to see what would happen so it was definitely suspenseful and also humorous. It wasn’t too scary but just spooky enough to be a fun Halloween season read too.

<i>arc provided to me by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review</i>

So, overall this has some fun elements, spooky elements but I also had a lot of issues with this but I’ll get into that.

What I really liked about this was definitely the characters especially the mythical creatures! The gnomes were adorable as was this book’s version of Bigfoot and I loved the vampire character as well and how he was the mentor type instead of being the terrifying villain like I thought might happen in the beginning.

I also did enjoy the fact that our main character, Willow has a hearing disability and requires hearing aids.

This leads me into things that I really did not enjoy.

Willow’s new ‘friends’ were super dismissive when she lost her hearing aid batteries and seemingly didn’t care either way if she got them back. Also, I understand that the villain of the story was meant to be a villain but the ableist way he spoke to Willow got on my nerves. He was repeatedly told that he didn’t need to shout to her for her to hear him but he does it at every instance that he interacted with her.

Something else I really did not like seeing was the fact that the kids at this summer camp had an arts and crafts activity where they were tasked to make dreamcatchers. There wasn’t a single indigenous character in this on top of that.

Overall, this definitely had issues but the story arc had it’s fun moments. I don’t think I will be continuing on with this series in the future though.

2/5 🌟

TW: ableism, violence, kidnapping, blood.

Title: Secrets of Camp Whatever Vol.1
Writer: Chris Grine
Genre- Comics
Year: 2020
Rating: 5/5 stars

Story: WIllow is going to attend a camp in the holidays with his parents. But the place where they are moving has some dark history. Many campers went missing there over the years. As they stopped at a diner to have something to eat, the waiter informs them that the place where they are going is haunted.

What will happen when willow join the other campers? Will she also become victim of the dark mysterious entity?

To get the answers, order the book right away.

Review:

I loved the way the author has presented the story. The story follows a proper pattern and runs in medium pace. There are many twists and turns which the readers going to enjoy very much. Also the elememt of suspense has been used beautifully by the author throughout the narrative. Overall, I have enjoyed going through the work.

I recommend this work to all the graphic novel lovers out there. Happy Reading.