Dairy Queen

I know that you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I loved the cow wearing a tiara on the front of this book. It is the reason I picked it up to read it in the first place. So many great books have terrible covers that they don't encourage readers to read them that I really love it when a publisher gets it right and has a great cover like this one.

And Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock lives up to its great cover. Life has been difficult for DJ Schwenk since her father injured his hip. At 15, DJ quits basketball so she can take over the milking on her family's dairy farm. So she is not feeling optimistic about a summer filled with milking, cleaning the barn, and baling clover until a family friend sends Brian Nelson to help out. Brian is the quarterback from a neighboring rival school and his coach thinks that working with DJ over the summer will get him into shape for football in the fall. Brian has looks and brains, but he is a slacker and this causes friction with DJ. However, training Brian for football is the best part of her summer. And everything seems to be looking up until DJ decides that she is tired of living life like a cow. She does everything expected of her. "I just did what my parents told me, and my coaches, and [my friend], and [my dog] even. . . . I was nothing but a cow on two legs." So DJ decides to break her "cow mentality" and do something no one expects: go out for her high school football team. This causes problems with her father who doesn't like anything out of the ordinary, her best friend, and Brian who plays for an opposing team.

Don't get me wrong Dairy Queen is about so much more than football. There are family issues, problems with friends, even a budding romance and of course, cows! This is a great novel for all and even if you have no interest in sports, you will enjoy DJ's story of her 15th summer.

I am looking forward to reading the sequel The Off Season that continues DJ and Brian's romance and tells what happens with her family.