Synopsis
For the millions who enjoyed childhood summers spent away from home at camp, those moments are recalled with everything from dismay to nostalgic bliss. For Disney CEO Michael D. Eisner, the months he spent at Keewaydin summer camp, nestled in the mountains of Vermont, served as a cherished and invaluable starting point for an adult life that would include a career and family life filled with unparalleled success. From the first time his father took Michael to Keewaydin at the age of seven, he realized it would become an important part of his life. Over the years, as a camper and a counselor, Michael absorbed the life lessons that come from sitting in the stern of a canoe or meeting around a campfire at night. With anecdotes from his summers at Keewaydin and stories from his life in the upper echelons of American business that illustrate the camp's continued influence, Eisner creates a touching and insightful portrait of his own coming-of-age, as well as a resounding declaration of summer camp as an invaluable national institution.
Kirkus Reviews
A valentine to summer camp from recently deposed Disney CEO Eisner, who makes it clear why the camp reverberates for him to this very day. Camp Keewaydin sits snuggly by a lake in mid-Vermont. It's a venerable camp of the old school, keeping one eye on character building and emotional growth-with lots of challenges, from arts to sports to long camping trips-and the other on planned freedom, offering the camper a fistful of opportunities to get busy or lay back. It isn't a tony establishment, but a rough and ready one, a place where you'll glean a few experiences that will benefit you later in life ("risk is good, but survival is better") or, as Eisner says, not without a hint of distaste, that will allow you to endure "Hollywood antics and boardroom politics." The story he tells is a braided and generous one, of his own growth at the camp from ages 8 to 22, a span that brought many firsts-being away from home, pulling his own weight, learning the importance of tradition, taking on responsibilities he knew would test his abilities. It's the story also of two boys Eisner later sponsored at the camp, Pepe and Q, from down-if-not-out Los Angeles. The two bring a very different quality to the camp than the regulars do. Their stories are interesting if not compelling-maybe because Eisner didn't see the events when they happened but had an operative observe them and report back. But Eisner's own recollections are smart and immediate: remembering the camp's surroundings, the tents and halls and playing fields, the bite of not winning awards, his clowning as a staffman, finding himself once in charge of a bloodied camper miles from nowhere, or remembering the sachem qualities of the camp'slong-time director. A well-told story of the raw ingredients of growing up, free of bluster but full of brio. (Eight-page photo insert, not seen)