Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen is one of the most thoughtful YA books I’ve read in years. It’s the story of D. J. Swenk, a teenage girl living on her family’s near-failing Wisconsin dairy farm. D.J. has been raised to regard hard work as a virtue and silence as golden, and she’s taken those lessons to heart: since her father’s surgery and her brothers’ departure for college, she does the work of three people on the farm and rarely says anything at all.

My favorite thing about Dairy Queen is the way that both the author and the heroine avoid unnecessary drama. Sure, there’s some teen (and adult) angst, but it’s rare—and wonderful—to read a novel where so much of the plot development takes place inside the heroine’s head.

Aftertaste:
None.

Availability:
Everywhere.

Other Recommendations:
Born Confused, by Tanuja Desai Hidier

Greensleeves, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Website:
http://www.catherinemurdock.com/ -