Friendship bracelets? Volleyball?
No thanks, said tween girls gearing up for summer camps across the land this year.
“Archery!” they all told their parents, who scrambled for months to find camps where they can learn about nocks, quarrels and the long rod.
“It’s never been like this before; it’s been crazy,” said a besieged Farron Moss, who runs Hoffman Archery in Warrenton. “We’re being called left and right to put on archery camps. So much so that it’s affecting my retail business.”
Last year, eight boys signed up for his class. This summer at one of his camps, he had nine tween girls in his archery store, sitting on the floor in between boxes of arrows, rows of camo gear and a stuffed, impaled bear. They are all braces and lanky legs, sparkly Sketchers shoes and Katniss braids.
“Now, I want you to tell your instructor ‘thank you,’ ladies,” Moss tells them. “He volunteered a lot of time to spend with you this week.”
He spins around and tells me, “See, I had to get extra help it’s been so busy.”
Moss, a burly man, hasn’t read the “The Hunger Games” trilogy or watched the blockbuster movie based on the first book. He hasn’t seen “The Avengers,” and he certainly didn’t go see Disney’s movie about a Scottish clan princess, “Brave,” so he’s unfamiliar with all of these tween heroines who are inspiring the flood of XX chromosomes in his business. But his new students are well versed in the adventures of Katniss Everdeen.
“Oh, I totally read ‘The Hunger Games,’ ” said a 12-year-old girl from Gainesville whose mom was calling camps all over to find one that had archery, at her daughter’s behest.
Prince William County’s Parks and Recreation Department was overwhelmed by calls from parents, all looking for a healthy outlet for their daughters’ sudden interest in bows, arrows and the killing of small and large creatures with the ancient weapons.
The department has several camps throughout Prince William. This was the first year that the department had contracted for a full camp with Hoffman Archery. And don’t forget, it’s not easy to find a place that can accommodate that many arrows flying through the air safely.
Every archery camp for miles around has a waiting list. At traditional summer camps in the Washington area, archery filled up first this year. The Olympic Games in London, which get underway this weekend, could further stoke interest in the sport.
For the Maryland Archery Association, the calls have piled up as well.
“We just did a session for about 150 Girl Scouts,” said Colleen McGowan, the secretary for the archery association, which has been flooded with requests from parents of girls who want to be like Katniss, the trilogy’s protagonist who survives against incredible odds in a post-apocalyptic death match in which children are forced to participate every year.
“They’re all talking about it,” McGowan said, of the dozens of Katniss wannabes that surround her. “Oh yeah, and the braids. The braids are trending, too.”
Katniss was known for her single, asymmetrical braid.
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