Music Camp by Penny Tangey

Title: Music Camp

Author: Penny Tangey

Genre: Contemporary

Publisher: UQP

Published: 3^rd June 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 240

Price: $16.99

Synopsis: Miley and Juliet have nothing in common, apart from a love of music.

Miley can’t afford the five-day Music Camp because she lost her home in a flood, but she’s won a scholarship to attend. This is her chance to prove to everyone that the recorder is a serious instrument.

Flautist Juliet comes from classical music royalty. Her late father was an esteemed clarinet player, and she wants to honour his legacy. She’s also keen to make friends with people who don’t know about her tragic past – though perhaps not with that girl who thinks the recorder is a serious instrument.

Over the week, Miley and Juliet don’t always see eye to eye, especially when they both audition for the only woodwind solo at the final night’s concert. But with torrential rain threatening to flood the camp, their dreams might get washed away. How can they put their differences aside and face the music together?

~*~

When Miley receives a scholarship to attend music camp with Miss Lin, she’s thrilled. It hasn’t been the best year for her and mum, after losing everything in a flood, and living in a caravan park. She also plays the recorder, which she loves and Miss Lin respects, but nobody else does. Juliet is a flautist, and lives with her mother following the death of her father, a renowned clarinet player. She loves to read and often speaks like she has stepped out of Regency England, but is determined to make friends with people who don’t know her father, don’t know her tragic past and who won’t judge her on those. Just maybe not with someone who thinks the recorder is serious. It’s a five-day music extravaganza, where one lucky woodwind musician will receive a solo in the big performance. Miley and Juliet both audition – but all their best efforts are thwarted by torrential rain…can they work together and bring the music to life?

I read this during the recent torrential rain across the NSW coast – where I was wasn’t as badly flooded as the camp and Miley’s home pre-story, but there were areas across the NSW mid-north coast and the area I live in that had floods, road closures and evacuations. So, it was poignant and interesting to read this during those nights of torrential rain that pounded the coast. Not many books explore a musical angle – usually, books that centre around a hobby or extracurricular activity centre on sports. It’s always refreshing and interesting to see other activities written about, because this gives scope to celebrate things like the arts and different things kids enjoy doing at school and with their friends.

Miley and Juliet don’t start off as friends – in fact, at first, it felt like everyone except Ollie and Renee were being nice to Miley and not judging her. I felt for both girls, who were grappling with trauma and tragedy, and how to fit into the world now that things had changed for them. Juliet hid behind a façade of being judgemental, of putting something she doesn’t like down because she refuses to acknowledge that there might be something more going on – something that surprised her and made her reconsider that she wasn’t as special as she once thought. For Miley, music has been a solace since the floods and losing everything, and she wants to make people realise that the recorder is a serious instrument that has an interesting history now lost to many.

The focus of the book is the music camp, but along the way, the kids – Miley, Juliet, Renee, Clara, Ollie and a few others – become good friends as they find out more about each other, play pranks and find out what makes each other tick. Miley and rule follower Renee often get dragged into the antics of the others, especially as cousins Renee and Clara have been told to stay together. The bonds of friendship grow throughout this novel, told in Miley and Juliet’s perspectives as they navigate music camp, different lives and experiences and finding out things that they didn’t think they knew about themselves and each other.

It a fun and poignant book that touches on the impacts of climate change, and navigating why big corporations with less than favourable records get involved in things like scholarships without being too heavy-handed. It’s done in an accessible way for readers aged eight and older, and as an adult reader, I have found that books like this that tackle a big issue in ways that are easy to understand, or in ways that aren’t bashing the reader over the head about it can get the message across much more effectively. It’s what makes people think about things, and question the way things are by introducing concepts in a non-confrontational way, but with just as much zest and passion.

Music Camp is a gorgeous story about friendship, music, and finding your voice. Finding a way to fit in when you feel like you don’t, because you’re into something that others might not see as cool. Any interest is cool, because it can connect us with friends and passion to bring out the best in us. It’s a delightful novel, filled with great friendships and the power to encourage people to follow their dreams.