TWU - LS 5623 Adventure, Sports & Mystery - DAIRY QUEEN

YA

Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. 2006. DAIRY QUEEN. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780618683079

PLOT SUMMARY - ANALYSIS

This book about football, farming, and family has a deeply raw dialogue about society, sweat and second chances.  Hard work combined with the spirit of doing something you love can produce a most interesting set of circumstances for the main character, D.J. The story’s opening takes ten pages before the gender of D.J. is mentioned and so the readers are not surprised by the passion that D.J. has for playing football for her Red Bend hometown team in the fall. Murdock sets the stage for a girl playing football with the boys by introducing and developing D.J.’s brother’s as secondary characters in the story, although mostly as legends. 

The writing is so pure in describing the life of a dairy farmer and the local small town football counter-culture from the narrator’s point of view that there are few elements of shallow insecurities that surface that are so common in female-lead books rather there is a hard line of determination and relentlessness that makes D.J. such a pillar of strength for her family and for her assignment, Brian.

This extremely likable narrator invites readers into her confidence and then rewards them with an engrossing tale of love, family, and football. (Horn Book (May/June, 2006))

“The grass is always greener” theme frequents this story as D.J. and Brian exchange family baggage. D.J. describes Brian in her first encounter with him saying “he gets top grades and is father owns a dealership so of course he has a new Cherokee, and all the girls are after him even though he wasn’t a starter because his grades are so good that he’d raise the team GPA, which coaches always like” (page 8-9). D.J. discovers that her family lacks communication skills when she learns that Brian’s mom travels and helps people learn to communicate while her mom’s job is to “keep the peace, make sure everyone is doing okay, and not say too much about it” (page 208).

D.J. grows throughout the book in her ability to have a friendship with Brain, reflect on the relationship between her and her best friend, Amber, and understand her family dynamics. She sees her mother in a different light and sees her as a happy person away from the house. She sees her father as a proud supporter and her brother, Curtis as a quiet “cow” doing as is expected every day, but wanting a different life.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Booklist 04/01/06

Publishers Weekly starred 05/15/06

Kirkus Review starred 04/15/06

Wilson’s Junior High School 08/01/07

New York Times 06/18/06

Wilson’s Senior High School 10/01/07

CONNECTIONS

Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. 2007. THE OFF SEASON. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

ISBN 9780618686957

·         Partner this book as a sequel

Mackey, Weezie Kerr. 2007. THROWING LIKE A GIRL.New York: Marshall Cavendish.

ISBN 9780761453420

·         Partner this book in discussing other female sports protagonist

Dole, Mayra L. 2008. DOWN TO THE BONE.New York: HarperTeen.  

ISBN 9780060843113

Partner this book to explore self-acceptance as an extension of Amber and D.J.’s relationship.