The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

D.J. Schwenk is not your typical sixteen-year-old. For one thing, she is six feet tall. She is also the only girl on the Red Bend High School football team, and probably the first girl linebacker in Northern Wisconsin. While she's doesn't see herself as "book smart," she is an exceptionally gifted athlete and helps run her family's struggling dairy farm.

As The Off Season opens, D.J. is reconnecting with her best friend Amber and Amber's girlfriend and first love, Dale. She is also savoring her first romance with Brian, the sweet, handsome linebacker for a rival high school's football team. In contrast with the Schwenks, who tend to be silent about their hopes, fears, and affections, Brian and his family talk freely about their feelings. D.J. admires his courage and revels in his ability to talk openly.

D.J.'s one hope of getting out of Red Bend is to earn a basketball scholarship and go to college. However a football injury jeopardizes that. She is also absorbing additional responsibilities due to her mom's back injury. Then an unexpected tragedy strikes the family which might permanently put an end to D.J.'s plans for her own life.

I loved this book just as much as I loved Dairy Queen. It stood out for the authenticity of D.J.'s voice -- I really believed I was hearing the words and thoughts of a sixteen-year-old girl, not bookishly clever but capable and, at times, remarkably wise. The most powerful part of the story, however, was D.J. herself. This character is both ordinary and exceptionally strong and courageous. I think this element -- the extraordinary compassion and bravery of ordinary people, in difficult circumstances -- is what makes it great fiction. I recommend this novel to pre-teens, teens and adult lovers of realistic novels.


Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

This whole enormous deal wouldn't have happened, none of it, if Dad hadn't messed up his hip moving the manure spreader.

This opens 15-year-old D.J. Schwenk's story. Her father is recuperating from an injury, her two older brothers have left home, and her mom is holding down two jobs at a local school. The responsibility for running the family's dairy farm has fallen on D.J.'s capable but overburdened shoulders. Because of this, she flunked tenth grade English. To further complicate things, her younger brother Curtis has virtually stopped talking. His elective muteness mirrors the way the whole family relates to one another. Their emotions, including anger, pride, and love, are held tightly in check, and most things go unsaid. However one thing that does connect D.J., her difficult father, and her brothers is a love of football.

Brian Nelson, who plays on a rival high school's football team, shows up at the farm. His coach has sent him to help D.J. with the milking, bailing, and other never-ending tasks.

Because us Schwenks aren't rich, and we're not that smart, and except for Bill, and Mom when she was thin back before she got married, we're nothing to look at. But one thing we can do is work. You want to learn how to work hard? Just look at us. We're about the very best place for a snotty, rich, sit-on-your-butt kid like Brian to go.

D.J. teaches Brian how to work on the farm and helps him train for the upcoming season. However, when he accuses her of being a "cow," someone who simply does everything she's told, it cuts her deeply. To prove to herself that he's wrong, she does something completely unexpected.

As a writing teacher, I read the work of young teens all the time, and this novel, told as D.J. writes down her experiences, feels more real than the narrator's voice in any other young adult novel I have ever read. Not only did the language strike me as incredibly authentic, but the story drew me in and made me feel I was in D.J.'s skin. I have never farmed or played football, but I felt the sweat and itchiness and she baled hay and the tension and exhilaration of running across the field with a football. I became a part of her feelings and experiences. I also fell in love with D.J. herself. She is thoroughly genuine, down to earth, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

Read another review at Lost in a Book and another at Bookshelves of Doom.

Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me