Bones and the Smiling Mackerel Author:Jean Caryl Boniface Cluett - better-known as Bones to his family and friends - expects to look "like a hamster in a fish tank" at coed Camp Crescendo, "the haven consecrated to culture," at which his friend Whitney has persuaded him to spend the summer. As the time for camp approaches, Bones would like to renege. At home he could play baseball instead of... more » the instruent his father wants him to study at camp - the trombone! Bones feels further misgivings when he tries on his camp outfit and has to hold his breath to button his "size 16 husky" shorts.
Nevertheless, Bones boards the Vermont-bound train, and is plunged into the arts. His immediate tangle with his junior counselor sets the background for mischievous cabin pranks and the inevitable problems that face a rebellious twelve-year-old.
But culture unites with comedy as Bones, in skimpy velvet bloomers and purple stockings, acts the "perfect Bottom" in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, learns to play the trombone with his lips instead of his eye-brows and turns a serious guitar lesson into a jam session. Amidst all of his creative pursuits, Bones catches a wildly shrewd fish, "a smiling mackerel," and averts a camp catastrophe.
A summer at camp Crescendo does not prepare Bones for the Boston symphony Orchestra or a stage career, but it deepens his understanding of people, and gives the reader an exciting and hilarious story.« less