Oh, it's been forever. This year has been so hectic for me, and I'm sure for both of you as well, and I've finally sat down and finished a book for the first time in months. It felt wonderful and I wanted to tell you guys about the book.
So it happened like this: When I started at AF, I inherited the position of Book Club Advisor from the previous advisor. I was unsure if I wanted to do it but I went ahead. First semester was dull and I considered handing the club off to someone else. I'm glad that I didn't though. At semester we elected a new president and things have been crazy ever since. We just wrapped up a Scholastic Book Fair, the first held at the High School in 7 years, and made a profit for Book Club of over $600! We received that profit in books, split amongst the girls that helped out, most of which were taken directly from the fair. I myself got a, nearly, complete collection of The Series of Unfortunate Events books and a few new paperbacks. This leads me to my reason for posting today.
The day that the fair materials arrived, I buried myself in books in the back room of the library trying to familiarize myself with the stock we had received. Okay, that is a rationalization. I was so excited by the presence of all those books! And their smell! (By the way, one of my favorite things I've ever read was in Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince, where Hermione describes her interpretation of the smell of the love potion. "...it's supposed to smell differently to each of us, according to what attracts us, and I can smell freshly mown grass and new parchment..." I think I would smell those things, too, along with wood smoke.) The first book that really caught my eye as one I would like to read was Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. I'm not sure why the cover attracted me so much but I read the back and one of the quotes clinched it for me.
"This is Romeo and Juliet in Wisconsin, with cows, but it's more comic than tragic."
I took the book and I started reading it then. Unfortunately at school I have very little time to read so I only completed about two chapters. This morning, however, I went back to bed when Andy left and started reading. I read 150 pages before we left for LaCrosse and I picked it up when we got back. I finished it about an hour ago.
It was hilarious. It's told in first person by DJ Schwenk, a 15 year old girl growing up on her family's dairy farm in Red Bend, Wisconsin. DJ is like most farmers, quiet, reserved and obsessed with hard work. Her family has its share of problems but they all keep their heads down and keep working. She has two older brothers who are both away at college and, during the summer, football camp. Her mother is working as both a sixth grade teacher and as an acting principal while the school looks for a new one. Her father has worked this dairy farm his entire adult life and is layed up due to hip replacement surgery. DJ has to do all of the daily chores herself or, when he's not playing baseball, with her silent 13 year old brother. One day the starting Quarterback from the rival town's football team, Brian, shows up on the farm to help the Schwenks out. Along with a number of other revelations, DJ eventually realizes that she has developed feelings for Brian and a desire to play football herself this fall.
The book was so honest. The dialect and candor of the prose style is to accurate, it's a little nerve wrecking. This girl could have been my best friend in high school. She sounds and acts and feels just like I did, growing up in a farming community in Wisconsin.
I highly recommend that you both pick up a copy of the book from B&N or the library. It has a sequel and the final book of the trilogy will be released in October. The author has promised that there will only be three books since a coming-of-age story must end when the character finally comes of age.
Hope all is well with you and your literary endeavors. I've got a stack of other books that I took from the fair that I cannot wait to dive into. Go forth and read, my friends.
"I cannot live without books!" ~Thomas Jefferson
