Bonus Recs #26: Some very good things you can send your child in a care package

It’s high time for summer camp and for those with kids enjoying the massive privilege of being away at sleep away, or otherwise in some location not in your IRL presence, there’s the niche question of what to put in a care package. Kids do love getting mail, and for me, the enjoyment of also receiving a handwritten letter back from your child at camp is incomparable (even if it’s dually full of “I miss you’s” and complaints about the kid in the adjacent bunk).

Nothing sends me more into a tizzy than the endless recommendations to go to a dollar store or Target and get a whole package full of $1 plastic trinkets, a real trash-in, trash-out approach to trying to attain some momentary satisfaction. I can guarantee that whatever fidget, squishy, key chain, miniature stuffed thing you send, will result in only ephemeral joy, and that what comes home and stays in the Bin of Treasured Objects is usually the cards and letters and photographs.

The value of the care package is an olive branch from the wild, the idea that you’re thinking of them, a reminder of the world outside their momentarily very analog in-the-woods-on-a-lake microcosm, and the best you can do is play into that pace, rather than burst it open too soon.

Here’s what I recommend:

• Wreck This Journal or Finish This Book, the best kind of part-journal, activity book, creative writing book I’ve found for kids 8+.