Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. 2006. Dairy queen. Boston: Graphia. ISBN-13 978-0-618-86335-8Fifteen- (almost sixteen)-year-old D.J. Swhenk finds the summer before her junior year filled with working her parents’ dairy farm (as her dad recovers from hip surgery) and unexpectedly training Brian Nelson, a Hawley quarterback, to get ready for the up-coming football season. D.J. lives in Red Bend, Wisconsin, and Brian plays for Hawley, which happens to be Red Bend’s major football rival. Brian’s coach, who happens to be a Swhenk family friend, sends Brian to D.J. for summer training, and at first, Brian seems like a spoiled, lazy, complaining rich kid—totally different from D.J. However, as the summer progresses and D.J. begins to take her role as trainer seriously, D.J. and Brian strike up a truce, then a friendship, and then a budding romance. But all that is put in jeopardy when D.J. realizes how deeply she loves the game of football and decides to go out for the Red Bend high school boy’s football team, which will pit her against Brian. Will D.J.’s decision destroy her friendship and possible romance with Brian? How will her family react? What about D.J.’s friend Amanda who resents her relationship with Brian and is not too happy about her going out for football? Can D.J. achieve her dream of making the football team without destroying all the relationships in her life? Read Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock and find out.
Spoilers ahead. Dairy Queen fits into the Adventure-Sport’s genre category. First of all, the adventure novel tends to have characters undergo a crisis or an ordeal. In this novel, protagonist D.J. undergoes many ordeals. For example, she has to deal with the crisis of living in a family where no one talks, her older brothers are estranged from the family, her younger brother Curtis refuses to talk, and D.J.’s father is recovering from an injured hip so she has to take on the brunt of the physical labor. Thus, she flunks sophomore English and has to drop out of sports. Add to that. she finds out her best friend Amanda is gay and thinks she has been dating D.J. for years while D.J. has been totally clueless and has been developing an interest in her former enemy Brian Nelson.
Another way in which this book fits into the Adventure-Sport’s genre is the wish fulfillment elements to this story. For example, D.J. wishes to make the boy’s high school football team, and she succeeds. She also desires for her family to talk more and become less dysfunctional, and some of this does occur by the end of the book.
A third way in which this novel epitomizes the Adventure genre is through D.J.’s ability to show physical and mental accomplishments. We see D.J. take on the chores of running her family’s dairy farm, which is a job that her father and two older brothers used to do. We also see her successfully train Brian Nelson, and as a result become so physically fit that she is able to try out and make the high school football team. D.J. also shows mental strength by learning how to overcome her fears of what her family and friends may think of her trying out for football and doing it any way.
Readers who appreciate strong female protagonists, humorous dialogue, and football will enjoy this book. A 2008 School Library Journal review says this of the book: “Wry narrations and brisk sports scenes bolster the pacing, and D.J.’s tongue-tied nature and self-deprecating inner monologues contribute to the novel’s many belly laughs.” Murdock has created a story that will capture the hearts of teens and even inspire them to work hard in their own lives and go after their dreams. Murdock deals realistically with family drama, a teen girl’s angst that includes trying to figure out her feelings for Brian Nelson, and just navigating her way through life.
This is a good book for teachers and school librarians to recommend for independent reading and is also a book that could be used in assigned literature circles that are reading sport’s-themed books. The target group for this book is teen girls, “girls who, like D.J., aren’t “girly-girls” but just girls, learning to be comfortable in their own skins” (School Library Journal, April 2008).
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