I spent 2 summers at a Jewish sleep-away camp. (Which was mostly like regular sleep-away camp, except we had Shabbat services and Hebrew school in addition to the regular arts & crafts / color war stuff.)

Some parts were fun (kicking the boys' collective asses in kayaking during color war, for example), but I was never much for teen girlish bonding, and so the living in a cabin with 14 other 11 year-olds part was about as close to torture as I've ever experienced.

I went to a Methodist church camp several years running. It only lasted 10 days each summer. Still, there was swimming, hiking, canoing, singing, and mud fights in the peat bog. All in all, pretty fun.

I had several years at a Jewish camp, and then two years at a regular camp (which was probably about 90% Jewish, but wasn't religious), and one year at performing arts camp.

I went to a Methodist church camp several years running

I was about to say I'd never stayed at a summer camp, but I did the Methodist church camp too. Ah, Jumonville, up in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I don't remember very much, aside from the view from the top of the mountain, how gorgeous the woods are, and how wretched other teenagers can be.

Girl Scout camp, two weeks (well, Tues-the next Sunday) every year from 11-15. Plus a year as a counsellor.

This one time, at crip camp... I found out it wasn't just the wheelchair that made me weird to people.

I spent many summers at camp, both as a camper and as a counselor. One of the most formative experiences of my life.

And five to ten for the counsellors who get tried for the child abuse.

Is that hardcore for camp?

I was thinking it was a commentary on the books? That sort of thing wouldn't have been out of the ordinary at the camps I went to.

Nah, I wasn't talking about the books (although for the kids who don't give a crap about HP, that would also apply). Just the waking the kids up in the middle of the night is bad enough.

It seems like the sort of thing that happened back in the nineteenth century, when people were waiting for the latest installment of one of Dickens' novels.

I've read that people in the U.S. would wait at the docks to meet ships carrying the next chapter of The Hound of the Baskervilles. People love a serial.

If I were a child, nothing would make me less interested in reading a particular book than 1) waking me up for it, 2) turning a solitary act into an communal experience, and then 3) reading it to me. If I'd had any interest in them up to that point, that would almost certainly kill it. But I suppose the relentless hype would have done that, too, since it's certainly had that effect on me as an adult.