He falls in love with the new camp nurse Rhonda and spends the summer trying to convince her to leave her fiancé for him.

Baxter's campers include the slick-talking Jerry Disbro, the sensitive writer Brian (who also has a crush on Rhonda), the baseball star Bobby, the overweight comedian Toby, and the shy Timmy Mezzy who is afraid of the water and wants to run away.

Jerry ends up becoming the camp con man, operating such scams as a letter writing concession using Brian, turning the P.X.

into "his own personal candy store", and making outlandish demands to help win Bobby his much-coveted spot on the Varsity baseball team by acting as his agent .

Jerry, who is on the opposite team in the Color War, tells Timmy the story of "Tough Break Thompson", a camper who supposedly drowned after conquering his fear of water at the camp.

Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times called Poison Ivy "two hours of tedium".