One strategy for summer reading — and yes, there are strategies — is to begin a project. Dabble in short punchy books, but devote the season to an epic. You get three months. You’ll clip right along.

Seven brand-new and time-tested books about sleepaway camp. By Elisabeth Egan Ghost stories and s’mores. Friendship bracelets and three-legged races. Trail mix, canoe trips, stars visible from a cozy ...