FOR MANY CHILDREN, the itchy summer-time pleasures of the outdoors have been replaced by air-conditioned hours in front of a screen. But two new middle-grade novels offer young readers a sampling of classic summer adventure - and may even tempt them to leave the house and find excitement out in the natural world. "Fort," by Cynthia DeFelice, tells the story of 11-year-old Wyatt Jones, a city kid spending the summer with his father in rural upstate New York, and his friend Augie Valerio, a full-time country boy. Wyatt and Augie have wanted to build a fort in the woods all summer. Now, with only two weeks left, they work hard scrounging up junk and hauling it to the site. Soon they have the fort of their dreams. They camp out in it, eating food they catch and cook with their own hands and gazing at the stars late into the night. When two mean older boys, J. R. and Morrie, find the fort and mess it up, Wyatt and Augie vow revenge with a "no damage policy": "No injury. No death. No dismemberment." They recruit Gerard DeMuth, an intellectually disabled boy who has been taunted by J. R. and Morrie, to help them. It's a familiar story of boyhood friendship, but DeFelice doesn't shy away from the gritty realities of outdoor life, and that's what sets the book apart. As Wyatt says, "There's school smart, and there's Augie smart." Augie teaches Wyatt how to shoot a squirrel with a slingshot, skin it and cook the meat. We learn how the boys gather materials and build their fort; how they catch fish, keep them fresh and clean them to eat for supper; how they make a lantern with a milk jug and a flashlight; how they set booby traps for their enemies. A reader could almost use this book as a how-to manual. The childhood world DeFelice depicts may seem to some like a throwback to decades past, when summer days were less structured and supervised, but readers will appreciate the reminder that fun like this is still possible. The boys' adventures have consequences they can see, feel, taste and smell. WORKING OUTDOORS also brings satisfaction and salvation to 12-year-old Missy McKenzie in Sara Nickerson's "The Secrets of Blueberries, Brothers, Moose & Me." Missy and her 14-year-old brother, Patrick, get jobs picking blueberries on a farm near their home in Washington State. Their mother is on a tight budget since the divorce from their father, and Patrick wants to earn extra money for luxuries like new clothes that come from the mall rather than the secondhand store. There's no money for Missy to go to sleep-away camp, so the job will give her something to do. As it turns out, Missy loves picking berries. She has a talent for farming, a special relationship to nature. She can hear the plants talk. She tells time by the height of the sun in the sky. And she's a hard worker, not distracted by the antics of the other young berry-pickers - unlike Patrick, whose head is turned by a girl in a bikini top named Shauna. The owners of the farm, Bev and Moose, entrust Missy with a secret: the magical Little Field, where the largest, sweetest, most succulent blueberries in the world grow in heavy clumps. This valuable field is the source of a blood feud between Moose and his brother, Lyle, who owns the farm next door, so Missy must guard the secret from everyone, including Patrick. For Missy, the farm is an escape. She worries that Patrick and her friends are leaving childhood - and Missy herself - behind too quickly. She is upset about her parents' divorce, her mother's sadness and her father's imminent remarriage. She suffers from a tendency to see the world in terms of heroes and villains, absolute right and absolute wrong. By the end of the book, Missy learns to tolerate ambiguity, "to find a way to make peace with the humanity of others." Even better, she's found something she loves to do, which helps anchor her when the rest of her world is rocked by change. As in "Fort," the adult characters in "Blueberries" are a bit one-dimensional, but it doesn't matter much. Every kid knows that a true summer adventure is all about leaving the grown-ups out of it. NATALIE STANDIFORD'S next middle-grade novel, "The Only Girl in School," will be published in 2016.

What preteen boy wouldn't love to build a fort in the woods?DeFelice makes that dream come true. Wyatt, on summer vacation in upstate New York with his dad, and Augie, who lives there all year round with his grandmother, hatch a plan to build a fort in the woods. Augie's neatly depicted great-uncle and his junkyard buddy provide the necessary materials. Augie's pillowy-bosomeda trait Wyatt hilariously can't help but noticegreat-aunt gives them food. Wyatt's dad offers him the freedom to explore and grow. Augie, something of a modern-day Huckleberry Finn, has ample talent as a woodsman. The very real threat from bullies J.R. and Morrie, and their abuse of mentally disabled Gerard, a good-natured neighborhood kid, provide the impetus for Operation Doom. That plan to defend the fort and protect Gerard (and even provide some justice) leads to a glorious, feel-good climax in which all the right things work out and the bad guys get their richly deserved comeuppance. Along the way, some squirrels are sacrificed by slingshot to provide good meals, and a car-parts calendar that includes photos of attractive young women adds realistic detail, both serving to enhance the authenticity of this captivating tale. Upbeat, engaging and satisfying; altogether a very fine book, especially for boys looking for a bit of believable, achievable adventure. (Fiction. 9-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Three pairs of buddies are the principal players in DeFelice's straightforward story: 11-year-old Wyatt and his summer pal Augie, Augie's Uncle Heindel and auto-parts-shop/junkyard owner Al, and older bullies J.R. and Morrie. City boy Wyatt spends summers in upstate New York with his father, whose college teaching schedule keeps him conveniently on the sidelines, giving Wyatt and Augie plenty of time for biking, fishing, hunting squirrels, and exploring the woods, where they build a fort using materials from Al's junkyard. Protecting the fort soon becomes a challenge: is it a local mentally disabled teenager or J.R. and Morrie who are vandalizing it? DeFelice (Wild Life) smoothly advances the plot to a satisfying climax and conclusion, while engagingly developing the relationship between Wyatt, Augie, and the older men, whose low-key support provides just the right amount of guidance for this adventuresome, good-hearted, but never goody-goody pair. Wyatt is a sympathetic narrator with a realistic blend of thoughtfulness and daring; DeFelice's secondary characters are well developed and add pleasing dimension to this summer tale. Ages 8-12. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Gr 4-7-Two best friends build a fort in the woods and defend it from bullies in this fun, old-fashioned story that manages to be fresh and familiar. Wyatt is enjoying the freedom of a summer with his dad in upstate New York. His friend Augie lives there year-round and has many useful skills that include killing squirrels with a slingshot and cooking them over a fire. There are the expected bullies, two older boys named J.R. and Morrie, and an unexpected friend named Gerard, a socially isolated teenager with developmental disabilities. The two friends spend rapturous days building their fort, looking at a car company's girlie calendar, and other country-boy activities unimpeded by smartphones or YouTube, since Wyatt's father doesn't want him plugged into a screen all day. In a low-stakes climax, the two bullies try to destroy the boys' fort but are foiled by an ingenious series of booby-traps. The moral center of the novel revolves around Wyatt and Augie discovering how J.R. and Morrie are mistreating Gerard and how after some hesitation, they find in him a valuable ally. There is a touch of burgeoning sexuality, mostly as Wyatt notices and appreciates Augie's aunt's figure, but otherwise the tone of the novel is remarkably innocent without being cloying or unrealistic. There is a good balance of action and description and well-developed characters, though the bullies are a tad two-dimensional. VERDICT A boy-centered adventure with heart, appealing to a variety of readers.-Kyle Lukoff, Corlears School, New York City (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Eleven-year-old friends Wyatt and Augie spend the summer building a fort in the upstate New York woods; teaching local bullies a lesson; and defending their special-needs neighbor, Gerard. The plot is simplistic, and the juvenile humor often feels forced. But the boys' friendship rings true, and the premise--roughing it with no parental supervision--will appeal to young readers. (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Wyatt and Augie's friendship is strong despite the fact that they only see each other in the summer. This particular summer, Wyatt's eleventh, is told as a flashback in the What I Did on My Summer Vacation essay that he has no intention of showing to a teacher. The two boys spend their summer in upstate New York (Wyatt comes just for the season; Augie lives there year-round) the way summers are meant to be spent: fishing, hunting, and, above all, camping out in a fort they built themselves. They have a few troubles with bullies, but when those bullies target Gerard, a mentally disabled kid in the neighborhood, it's time to turn the tables. Stuffed full of clever pranks and summertime nostalgia, this is a story of kindness and adventure, and a rare breed in the middle-grade canon that doesn't rely on cheap humor to hold attention. A boisterous and poignant coming-of-age tale.--Reagan, Maggie Copyright 2015 Booklist