National Network for Equitable Library Service

The letters went out in mid-February. Each letter invited its recipient to spend a week at Camp So-and-So, a lakeside retreat for girls nestled high in the Starveling Mountains. Each letter came with a glossy brochure with photographs of young women climbing rocks, performing Shakespeare under the stars, and spiking volleyballs. By the end of the month, twenty-five applications had been completed, signed, and mailed. Had any of these girls tried to visit the camp for themselves on that day in February, they would have discovered that there was no such mountain, and that no one within a fifty-mile radius had ever heard of Camp So-and-So ...