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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
May 2006, 278 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2007, 278 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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A well-written story written in a pitch-perfect teenage voice. D. J. Schwenk is an unforgettable character: A football-loving 15-year-old who takes over running her family's small Wisconsin dairy farm when her dad is injured. Like the rest of her family, she is not much of a talker - but when she meets Brian, a snooty quarterback assigned to her for football training, she finally learns to speak her mind.
When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.
Harsh words indeed, from Brian Nelson of all people. But, D. J. can’t help admitting, maybe he’s right.
Stuff like why her best friend, Amber, isn’t so friendly anymore. Or why her little brother, Curtis, never opens his mouth. Why her mom has two jobs and a big secret. Why her college-football-star brothers won’t even call home. Why her dad would go ballistic if she tried out for the high school football team herself. And why Brian is so, so out of her league.
Welcome to the summer that fifteen-year-old D. J. Schwenk of Red Bend, Wisconsin, learns to talk, and ends up having an awful lot of stuff to say.
Excerpt
Dairy Queen
This whole enormous deal wouldn’t have happened, none of it, if Dad hadn’t
messed up his hip moving the manure spreader. Some people laugh at that, like
Brian did. The first time I said Manure Spreader he bent in half, he was
laughing so hard. Which would have been hilariously funny except that it wasn’t.
I tried to explain how important a manure spreader is, but it only made him
laugh harder, in this really obnoxious way he has sometimes, and besides, you’re
probably laughing now too. So what. I know where your milk comes from, and your
hamburgers.
I’ll always remember the day it all started because Joe Namath was so sick. Dad
names all his cows after football players. It’s pretty funny, actually, going to
the 4-H fair, where they list the cows by farm and name. Right there next to
“Happy Valley Buttercup” is “Schwenk Walter Payton,” because none of my grandpas
or great-grandpas could ...
D.J. is a heroine to root for - funny, intelligent, independent and self-deprecating. We thoroughly recommend Dairy Queen, the first of a planned trilogy, to teenage girls - and if the occasional boy could bring himself to read it, firstly he might enjoy it, and secondly he would glean more about the female psyche than he'll learn from any number of locker room discussions!..continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Though she never played high school
football or milked cows, Catherine
Gilbert Murdock is a big fan of family
farms and Wisconsin. She herself grew up
on a tiny farm (two goats and honeybees)
in Connecticut, and attended Bryn Mawr
College and the University of
Pennsylvania. She now lives in suburban
Philadelphia with her husband, two
children, and Sparky the cat. Dairy
Queen is her first novel.
Interview & biography at BookBrowse.
Did you know?
Catherine's sister is
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat,
Pray, Love.
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