Front and Center by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

I really like DJ Schwenk. I enjoyed reading about her troubles when she decides to go out for football in the book Dairy Queen. I felt terrible for her, but still liked reading about her working with her injured brother in The Off Season. And I really liked the way Catherine Gilbert Murdock finished her story in Front and Center.

Football season is over and her brother is doing better so DJ has returned to school and is looking forward to basketball season. She has a new boyfriend Beaner who is fun to be around and accepts DJ for who she is unlike Brian her first boyfriend. However, it doesn't take long for DJ's life to get complicated. As good as she is at basketball, DJ's coach wants her to be more assertive on the court. He says that she has to learn to be more vocal. But DJ is painfully shy and telling other players what to do is painful for her. Additionally many Division I universities are recruiting her to play basketball for them, but she has to overcome her shyness and participate in the recruiting process. The idea of talking to coaches and playing in front of large crowds of people make her physically sick. To top it all off, as great as Beaner is, DJ finds herself thinking more and more about Brian.

It is fun to listen as DJ tells the problems of her life and watch her make the decision that will affect the rest of her life. Front and Center is a satisfying conclusion to a wonderful trilogy. If you read the first two books, you have to read the conclusion.

Merchant of Death by D.J. MacHale

The Merchant of Death by D.J. MacHale is the first in the Pendragon series. There are now 10 books in this series. I am the first to admit that I am not a huge fantasy reading, but I have a library aide this trimester who is and she is a great authority on most fantasy series. Emily generously agreed to write a book review for the first book in this series which has been very popular in the past couple of years.

Bobby Pendragon may look like a normal fourteen year old, but what he doesn’t know is that he is going to save the world. In The Merchant of Death by D.J. MacHale, Bobby’s Uncle Press shows up one and night and tells him that there are some people who need their help. What Bobby didn’t realize was that the people in need of help weren’t on Earth.

Press and Bobby travel across space and time, using flumes, to the medieval territory of Denduron, which is on the edge of a dangerous revolution. Only one small push is needed to send the territory into disaster. The evil Saint Dane is there to provide that push, and Bobby and his new friends are the only things standing in Saint Dane’s way. All the while Bobby can only think about how to get back home. But soon Bobby comes to realize that Denduron is only the beginning.

The Sweetheart of Prosper County

Somehow the month of March got away from me and it has been over a month since I have put anything new on my blog. Because of construction, the library has moved into a temporary space, so that is what I have been doing instead of reading. We are finally settling in and here are some pictures of our fantastic temporary space. The construction workers are really working on remodeling our new library and we are supposed to be in it sometime at the beginning of next school year. However, we are enjoying our new view and our new home, however temporary it is!

As we begin Spring, I start looking for books that have a summer feel to them. The Sweetheart of Prosper County by Jill S. Alexander is one of those books. The rooster on the front cover with the Country Fair blue ribbon makes me think of the many county fairs I have attended!

However, The Sweetheart of Prosper County is not just a lighthearted novel about the country fair, it is a novel about a family dealing with loss. Austin’s father died on Christmas Eve when she was only 6 years old, and even though, Austin is now a freshmen in high school, her mother is stilling wearing black T-shirts and refusing to celebrate Christmas or other holidays.

As her freshman year progresses, Austin grows increasingly tired of Dean Ottner the school bully making fun of her. It seems that she is his favorite target and she wants to shut him up once and for all. In order to do this, Austin decides to join the FFA at school and become a Sweetheart of Prosper County and ride in the Christmas Parade next year She thinks that Dean will not be able to make fun of the Sweetheart of Prosper County. So she asks her mother for a chicken for Christmas. so she can have an animal to enter at the County Fair. This is when a rooster named Charles Dickens enters her family, she becomes friends with Josh, a reticent cowboy, and tries to helps her mother deal with the grief from the loss of her father. If you are looking for a fun read, this is the perfect book for you.