With the school year winding down, thousands of families are busy preparing the kids for summer camp. Some go willingly, other go kicking and screaming, figuratively and literally.

In her new book Not a Happy Camper (Grove Press), former Springfield resident Mindy Schneider recalls her trepidation over heading off to Maine for what started off as a comically harrowing experience…and got progressively worse. Of course, that's speaking relatively, from the point of view of a 13-year-old fresh from her bat mitzva and concerned about how she would get on with her bunkmates and whether the boys would consider her girlfriend material.

Schneider, 46, a former writer for such sitcoms as Growing Pains, Who's the Boss?, and Step By Step as well as programs on Nickelodeon, remembers those years with a combination of joy and loathing.

"Most of my friends are writers, and I would periodically tell them stories about my camp. Then they'd say, ‘You really should write that down,' said Schneider in a telephone interview from her home in Los Angeles. "Which was terrifying, because I really had no idea how to write a book."

The tipping point came 10 years ago when she attended a camp reunion. She reconnected with old friends and shared anecdotes, which prodded her to action.

Most of the names, including that of the camp itself, have been changed to save embarrassment, she said. "A lot of the people, the ones who aren't major characters, I named after people I'm friends with now," she said. "It got to the point where I was e-mailing friends from college saying, Who wants to be the one writing the letter from ‘fat camp'? Who wants to be the one who spreads impetigo?"

The end product was a memoir of an adolescent's search for identity — not to mention romance — in the mid 1970s. Even after all this time, some of the mental images still make Schneider cringe.

"I started out to just write about my camp, but the camp is not a character, and I realized I needed to give it a point of view, and it made sense to give it mine. For a long time I felt very narcissistic that I was writing my memoir because I'm no one. But then I thought, that's what makes it identifiable to other people, because I'm just another one of the campers."

Schneider has no children to worry about when it comes to agonizing over summer programs. "I also know that camps aren't run like that anymore, because everybody would sue." Some of the situations depicted in the book pale in comparison to episodes that were omitted, she said.

In the book, Schneider portrays her parents, Marylin and Zachary, as somewhat…colorful. "I had my mother read the book twice to make sure there was nothing she would be offended by," said Schneider, whose father is deceased. Her mother "runs around telling her friends, ‘I'm Mommie Dearest. She thinks it's hilarious that that's how I remember everything. She loves that that's how I wrote her."

In retrospect, the relatively carefree summer days at camp are lit by the rosy glow of nostalgia. "Coming from a religious family, where there were so many rules, once I ended up in a place that seemed like it had less rules, that was really enjoyable to me."

In reviewing the arc of her family's observance in New Jersey, Schneider said it "ran the gamut of lazy, hazy, crazy. We belonged to Beth Ahm (Conservative) in Springfield but when I was around 13, Congregation Israel (Orthodox) moved into town and we had dual memberships. I believe my youngest brother, David, had two bar mitzvas — one of each. Eventually, I think my parents were members at just Congregation Israel, where my father was once named Man of the Year and served a term as president.

"When my mother remarried in 2005 [to Joe Horowitz]…she joined his Reform congregation, Sha'arey Shalom. They were married by Cantor Amy Daniels of that synagogue. Although my mother now attends Reform services, when Joe moved into her house, she made him start keeping kosher. At age 78."

While working on Not a Happy Camper was an enjoyable experience, Schneider felt a certain amount of pressure to get it done. After conducting all the interviews and getting her friends' stories, she said, "I would have felt embarrassed if it didn't get published. It was…a great relief when it sold."

With all its youthful Sturm und Drang, Not a Happy Camper sounds like the perfect vehicle for cinematic rendering. "I really, really hope so," said Schneider, who now works for the City of Los Angeles recreation and parks department. "That's my day job since reality shows kind of killed sitcoms, and I just didn't feel like pursuing it any more."

Camper hit the bookstores just a few weeks ago, but Schneider has already received an invitation from the American Camp Association to be a keynote speaker at its 2008 annual conference. "Of course I'm going to say yes to that, and then panic for months over what I'm going to say," said Schneider, channeling her awkward 13-year-old self.

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