The Greystone Library's Most Popular Titles

In some of our earliest Greystone archive photos, you can find pictures of girls reading out on the Pageant Court and in the White Chairs – not much has changed in 100 years (except that now most campers read in Enos!). Because campers have loved books for generations, Greystone has always wanted to have books available during the summer. While books for our campers have been stored in many locations around camp, White Hall became the unintentional landing place for all the books in earlier days and was the default library for our campers over many decades.

Campers today know White Hall as one of the nicest locations in camp; however, prior to its renovation, White Hall was an old building with a funny layout. If you were looking for a good book, you would mostly find old, dusty books crammed along the shelves. Camp didn’t have an official “check-out” system in earlier days, but many of our alumnae probably remember being asked to bring a book to donate to the library on the yearly packing list.

When White Hall was renovated in the late 90s, the books were packed away and stored in many dusty and moldy locations in the off-season, being moved often. Temporarily, what books could be salvaged (after years of storage) were set out in a section of what later became the Fine Arts Center, but when the FAC was renovated, the books were boxed up to be stored again. At that point, Laura Hollowell took a few books to her office (so girls still had access to them), and over time, her office collection grew.

As campers stopped by regularly to check out books from Laura’s office, camp knew it needed a more permanent library location. When the Counselor Hut was moved in the 2000s, the area in White Hall that staff used for laundry was transformed into our current library space. The maintenance crew popped up some shelves, and the Greystone Library was officially born.

While great to have a permanent space, the Library served mostly as a place to drop off and pick up books, and was often cluttered and not straightened. Over time, it was obvious that the Greystone Library needed a refresh. Many of the old books (some of the dusty, moldy ones that were pulled from the same boxes that were stored years ago) were cluttering the space, and with camper donations, the book quantity kept growing; it was time for a spring cleaning (or spring purging!).

Jamie Hutchinson, our Head Nurse and decorator extraordinary, took on the project and turned the Library into what it is today. With Jamie’s hard work and eye for all things “cute,” she created an inviting space with fun décor.

As so many of our current campers enjoy reading and love to visit the Greystone Library, this past summer, we invested almost $1000 in new books for the Library, making sure we offered some of the latest and greatest reads. We want to continue improving our offerings making the Library a home for every camper to enjoy, and we hope you can help us!

Book Suggestions:

Don’t worry…the top reads from this past summer are below, but we need your help! If you are a camper, have a camper, or are an alumna (or even just a friend of Greystone), we’d love to hear your book suggestions for our Library. Our goal is to provide wholesome, uplifting reads that are enjoyable for our wide range of campers (ages 7 – 18). So, suggestions from our youngest ages to our oldest are most welcome.

Fill out this form to let us know what books you’d recommend.

Also, if you have books you’d like to donate to the library, we would love to have them! You can bring them to camp when you visit this summer or send them our way. We are looking for new or lightly used books that can withstand a summer of camper reading. Make sure to check out our most popular reads below to get a feel for what the girls are interested in these days (and so that you can see what types of books are most valuable to donate to our Library).