Claudia is so upset about her brothers leaving for camp that you’re reminded that if you want to cry properly, you’ve really got to put your whole body into it. She has her tiny hand around her brother Miles’s arm. Her mother has bent over, pearls swinging, to reassure her. The fact that Claudia’s hair is identical to her mother’s is moving, as is the relative size of the hatbox that Claudia is clutching, as is the fact that Miles is holding a toy dog. And the expression on the girl’s face? It’s devastating, unless your heart is a Ziploc bag full of sawdust .

One of the chief salves for homesickness has remained constant over the decades: mail from home. “On the first day of camp, before the parents leave, they have to sit at a table and write at least five letters so we’re covered for the first week,” Ms. Drobenare said. “Kids don’t want long letters, they just want something to open. If you email, they still get it like a letter, meaning we fold it up and staple it. I tell parents, ‘Don’t write that pets died, don’t write that relatives died, don’t write that you’re on vacation without them.’ Every summer, somebody says, ‘By mistake, we broke your Nintendo Switch.’ Those are things you never write a child when they’re at camp.”

Asked if there were parents who neglected to send mail, Ms. Drobenare became touchingly stern. “Oh, no, we get to you,” she said. “If two days go by and we haven’t gotten a letter for your kids, we’ll call you, we’ll call your husband, we’ll call the grandparents. We will get a letter for that child. Their kid’s going to get mail. It’s really important.”