Vikki VanSickle (Credit: Connie Tsang)

The Lightning Circle is a novel-in-verse written by acclaimed children’s author Vikki VanSickle. The transformative story of Nora Nichols’s 17th year follows her three-month stay at summer camp in the wake of her first heartbreak. 

In a conversational and intimate tone, Nora relates her anxiety about making new friends with bittersweet insights that are especially poignant in teenage years: “Unofficially / we’ll divide ourselves / along the invisible, unspoken lines / of coolness. // But for now, / we’re one big mass / of possible friendships.” Like Laura K. Watson’s finely drawn sketches coloured with a muted but bright green, each poem conveys scenes from Nora’s journey over the summer with casual and elegant precision.

VanSickle’s story is impeccably paced and unfolds with memorable bits of dialogue and characters such as camp coordinator Kala, who wears a jade turtle around her neck, and camp friends Mezzo and Tex, who talk endlessly about Kala’s boyfriend. Nora confesses the difficulty of not thinking about her crush who pushed her on the swing for hours after her grandma died, but who doesn’t want to be more than friends. The novel revels in the richness of summer with talks around the campfire or “lightning circle,” where Nora finds friendship and healing as she learns about the other girls’ experiences with infatuation and love.

Glamping and camping lovers alike will chuckle with “Peeing at Midnight,” in which Nora vows never to take a sip of water past eight o’clock. Struggles with imposter syndrome make Nora relatable as she questions whether she’s qualified to support 13-year-old girls: “But how do I teach them / to go out into the world, / to take risks, / to fall in love? // I went out on that limb / everyone is always talking about, / and I’m still recovering / from the fall.”

Nora’s vulnerability conveys her strength and carries the story through to the end when the girls light candles and float them downstream, one for each camper. Nora admits that it feels like a memorial service but honours “the magical space / knowing it can never be conjured / quite the same way / again.” The final words of the book attest to the brilliance of the story: “forever changed.”

The Lightning Circle is a richly imagined and deeply felt story that speaks to the power of female friendship, the gift of reinvention, and the perspective-shifting joy of being outdoors. I immediately bought a copy for my teenage niece.