Dairy Queen

This is a book that took me a while to get into. At first glance, I was a little turned off by the football based premise. I am totally anti-football and I wasn't sure I'd be able to stand it. However, once I got past that, I ended up reading most of the book in two days. It was actually way better than football...

The story follows DJ in her own coming of age tale. She has to overcome the silence that her family practices and learn to speak up for herself. One major way she does this is by befriending another town's QB and training him over the summer. As she becomes closer to him, she learns to speak and ends up trying out for her town's football team. This brave act of hers, while it immediately causes more trouble for her, ends up breaking the family silence, healing the wounds between DJ and her friends, and giving her the outlet she needed.

This is a really inspiring book. In some ways it reminded me a lot of Speak. It has a totally different plot, but the theme of speaking was so prevalent in both that I think students could easily tie the two together in discussion and writing. DJ has to learn to accept her family, her situation, and become comfortable enough with herself to have a voice. Once she does, everything seems to fall into place for her. There is just so much material in this book that is worthy of a classroom. If not for a whole class text I would definitely have this novel available for my students. DJ's voice is appealing to the YAL reader and her message is strong for anyone, not just the football playing farm girl. All in all, this is probably one of my favorite books this semester.