Camp Fear

Shivers #27

by M.D. Spenser

Jane and her friends take the rocky road and soon learn that camping can be very hazardous to their health. Somewhere out in the wilderness, they join their class for a 3-day camping adventure. A most bizarre adventure into fear. Their camp was once part of a magnificent, mysterious estate. Now all around the sound of crying can be heard. Beyond the camp is the real horror, there deep under the land is a forgotten mine. A class project takes the girls to the terrible tunnel below. Suddenly, they must face their fears -- fight to stay alive -- and find out the true cost of friendship.

Genres: Horror, Childrens

124 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 17, 1997

About the author

M.D. Spenser is a children's author, journalist and music critic. Born in the United States, he lives now in the UK.

"The Enchanted Attic," Book 1 of his popular SHIVERS series of novels for children, was republished as an e-book in August 2011. It is available at amazone.com, Barnes & Noble, Sony and iBookstory. Book 2, "A Ghastly Shade of Green," and Book 3, "Ghost Writer," followed shortly afterwards.


The rest of the 36-book series will be published as ebooks over time.

Also, an internet petition is circulating asking that the entire 36-book series be republished in paperback: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/md...

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I Just finished another Shivers book.This one is called Camp Fear.With a combination of being sick and this being an absolute terrible book,I'm proud to say I finished this book.The story follows four girls,Lindsay,Jamie,Molly and Chelsea.Lindsay and Jamie are good friends and want to get paired with their other friends at this camp that they are going to.The teacher instead pairs them with Molly a nerd and Chelsea, a stuck up.Molly ends up losing her glasses and goes looking for them under a cabin,only for Chelsea to use a coat hanger to make scraping noises making the girls think it's a snake.Jamie and their team gets back at Chelsea with throwing rocks at them.The group ends up exploring in the mountians and sees a abandoned mine.The girls end up off track and see a bunch of snakes.Chelsea leaves with the map and they go back to the cabin.Lindsay or Jamie,I already forgot which one wants to explore the mine and she tricks Chelsea into going.The other girls agree to go.They hear scraping noises and see this sign that says "Stay away from my m",which one of the girls says she thinks its mine.The end up going to the mines and losing canteens along the way.Inside the mine the girls find a treasure.Chelsea tries to leave with it .This is where the reveal is so im going to leave this like this.This book was bad.I was very bored with it.I forgot alot of it.I found a blogger called Gnarly Book Reviews,that helped me out.So if your reading this thanks!I give Camp Fear a two out of five stars.I did like the Ghostly voices and the climax with the lightning,but the rest was bad.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, welcome to the finale of my summer camp reading…thing. I’m weirdly sad this is the end but ah well. For this one, I randomized a few options and let my twitter followers pick from them. It was all over the place at first but soon there was a clear victory. And with it, our ripoff series cycle goes on with Shivers.

Those who have been following me know how…mixed Shivers can be for me, and that is summed up nicely with Ghosts of Camp Massacre, their first camp book. It tried some darker stuff but it was bad, just a rough read. The second one was Night of the Goat Boy but sadly we’re not doing that, instead we got the last one.

And it's pretty middling. Jane and her friend Lindsey are heading to a school camping trip which as at an actual camp that used to belong to some millionaires. They're excited but that dampens when they see that one of their bunk mates is local snooty rich girl Chelsea Daniels, not the That's so Raven but boy I wish. There's also a nerdy girl named Molly.

They have to do some school geology project for reasons and along they way they discover a mine that is off limits. Creepy things start happening, warning them to stay away from the mine. Guess what happens there, go on, guess.

So this one was built up as an especially weak one by a couple other reviews I've seen and honestly, it a bit better than that. I'd rate is as just Average. It's the most "eh" Shivers books I've read so far but I feel like it at least tried, at least at first. Starting with the positives, there is an alright idea when this being more of a wilderness survival thing that also has them trying to get out of the mines one they get trapped that. The supernatural stuff is light which at first is okay since it focuses on other things that provide action.

We also have some attempt at character stuff. For one, Jane and Lindsey are some of the better friends I've seen in these, being quite close in a nice way. They aren't deep but they are likable, and at least we have the "one is catuioous, one is brave" dynamic which gets pushed slightly as both are tested a bit like once. They're even nice to the nerd, growing to stick up for her. I was fearing another judgemental thing so I'm glad we got some mild wholesomeness.

Chelsea is the standard rich jerk who almost develops, as she has to join them in all this and gets one moments giving them a good idea. It doesn't go anywhere though which is where we get into the flaws. This one ends up feeling empty. It takes awhile to get into much action and even longer to get into the mines.

There's some decent tension there but it does feel a bit slow, like it doesn't ramp up as much as it should. We get enough as well as one solid sobering moment. There's a dark backstory for why there ends up being gold in the mines but that's as dark as it gets, it's the least dark one we've covered. The ghost ends up having no real backstory, we don't know who they are meant to be, it is weird.

The things they do are tame and they do nothing while in the mines for some reason. Then the charterer stuff is dropped as Chelsea goes back to being bad to be called out and after the climax, there is no wrapup for the character stuff. It just kinda stops. Plus Jane ends up being dumb with how she wants to go into the mines that are of limits to begin with just to look for stuff for the project. Even after the warnings, they press on I know ignoring warnings is a common thing but it's annoying here.

It's a shame, this one has all the right pieces for a solid adventure with some nice character development. Instead it feels like a car that gives up after revving up. It has some fine build up, and doesn't get into the annoying problems some others did. There's not many fake outs here, or annoying "little did we know" bits. That's what made Camp Massacre and Thing in Rom 601 so much worse as "nothingburger" books, not only was nothing going on but it was annoying about it.

This at least lacks that, heck most chapters end without a cliffhanger at all. It felt a bit ghostwritten to me. That and they use "uh" which we know Spenser would never do. This book is better than I expected with some effort here and there, but it doesn't build to anything that strong.

It has the least interesting highs but it didn't annoy me that much and it wasn't even /that/ boring com pared to other things I've read. It just felt like a first draft that had to be rushed. Also, more about a mine than a camp even though there is one. It's like they didn't know what they wanted to focus on .

It's okay but skippable. Another example of how frustrating Shivers can be, but not the worst example. Maybe Goat Boy pulls it off but that's for another day. A weak one to end this on but ah well.

Well, that ends this camp marathon. I will do this next year as it was fun, and I got some wild surprises. The best was easily Curtains, which I was not expecting. Outside that I didn’t get any big pleasant surprises but it was fun to experience them and almost all were good. A lot of them had protagonists being judgemental jerks for some reason. We had two tribes of bigfoots (bigfeet?) and one with wet dreams. I will never get over that.

My ranking goes Camp Fear, Mystery at Camp Wendigo, Camp Pine Tree Pals, Help I’m Tramped in my Camp Counselors, Upchuck Summer, Scream Around the Campfire, Camp Haunted Hills and Curtain, as I said. I think that ranking looks good.

That’s about it. On Sunday I hopefully have Galaxy of Fear and...well I think next after that is August's Pike book, dang. See ya then for all, and happy summer.

[Jairo_rocker · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was not bad at all, but felt disappointing, and i really wanted the cover skeletons to be in the book...


This book is alright. It wasnt a favorite, and the ending was SO RUSHED. and it wasnt that scary, i love the name and the cover though, and the beginning to middle part was spectacular. the ending was barely adequate.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give this book 4.25☆. I really, really enjoyed it! It was a mixture of Stand by me, adventure amongst friends with that Goosebumps spooky feeling.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book for children’s horror. The characters were distinct, the mine was really creepy, claustrophobic, and atmospheric. It was full of action too. Only thing I wish it showed more at the camp and that the ending wasn’t rushed as much. Overall a good quick read. Kinda reminded me of the Goonies lol

[Nader Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.3/10

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much caught my imagination as a child. I must have read this countless times as I remember a lot of it very clearly. Quite lightly written, but an enjoyable children's story.

[Owen · Rating 1 out of 5]

What was the point of this book. Never

[Rana Sallam · Rating 3 out of 5]

a bedtime story! :D

[Strawberry stranger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not bad but disappointing 😞

[Pulp_Fiction_Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had an interesting premise and good setting but unfortunately never did anything with it. Nothing spooky happens in here, I wish we had got the story the cover depicts but we don't.