Front and Center by Catherine Gilbert Murdock


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
So this was the last of the Dairy Queen books as far as I know. I loved it too!! This one is still in D.J.'s Junior year of High School. It is called front and center because D.J. starts to get WAY more attention than she ever wanted in her life with Boys, School, Colleges, even her family. It stresses her out for most of the book. D.J. discovers that Beaner, who she thought was just a friend, wants to be more. And she discovers that her mind is not yet ready to be done thinking about Brian. Win, her high school basketball coach, and college coachs start to put on the pressure for DJ to become the assertive player she could be (and cant get herself to become until her friend Ashley's Suggestion). Both D.J. and Brian have learned a lot about themselves and their families through the course of the three books and it is all kind of accumulated in this last one. I absolutely Love D.J. and all of the characters and am pretty sad that it is done, but it was quite an uplifting, eye-opening, and fun coming of age story that is very easy to relate to! So fun! 254 Pages. 3/3 Dairy Queen Books.

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The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Off Season is the sequel to Dairy Queen and it is soo good! This one starts out about 3 days after Dairy Queen leaves off, after the big game DJ played. The off season is about part of D.J.'s Junior year in high school and her decision between playing basketball and football, going to college, dating Brian... Brian and D.J. start off the same as they left off, liking each other. Brian even takes her shopping in another city and buys her things and holds her hand and then on the way home they kiss for the first time, and D.J.'s narration/description of this kiss is quite hilarious! It ends up, however, that Brian acts pretty stupidly around his friends still when it comes to D.J. and then theres the incident with People Magazine and the turkey farmers. Also, in the middle of the football season that D.J. was so enjoying, she gets tackled and hurts her shoulder and is forced to decide between quitting football to save her arm for Basketball, or possibly not being able to play basketball which would be her only way into college- a basketball scholarship. The other HUGE event that piles stress on top of D.J.'s life, is during her brother Wins football game that the family was all gathered to watch, Win gets face masked illegally and breaks his neck! D.J. ends up being the one to be with Win and helping him through his misery. D.J. and her family also learn a lot more about Curtis, her little brother, and his academic abilities. This sequel was great and I cant wait to hear more from D.J. Schwenk! 277 pages. 2nd of 3 Dairy Queen books.

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Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Anne of Green Gables is such an amazing book. It is the one the most pleasant reads I have ever come across. It just fills you with Anne's contentment and enthusiasm with the world. This is such a sweet story about a little 11 or 12 year old orphan girl who is brought to Avonlea by mistake to be adpoted by the Cuthberts, Marrilla and Matthew. They meant to have a boy sent to adopt to help Matthew on the farm but Anne was sent by accident. Matthew is deeply afraid of women and girls alike, but takes an unexpected comfort and liking the Anne. Anne is quite dramatic, talkitive, and imaginative and finds joy in everything around her. If there something not joyful, she imagines that it is. Anne and Marilla and Matthew grow to love oneanthoer dearly. Anne becomes close with the other adults in town as well like Mrs. Rachel Lynde and Mrs. Barry and Miss Barry (The Barry's Aunt) and Mrs. Allen and so forth. Anne meets the little girl next door, Diana, and they take a vow of Bosom Friends Forever. They become the closest and dearest of friends. Anne becomes quite popular with the girls and boys at school. One of the first days at school Anne makes an enemy of Gilbert Blythe. He called her carrots because of her red red hair (which she was quite self concious about) and she becomes infuriated and smashes her tablet over Gilberts head. Anne is always making mistakes but makes the point that even though she is thoughtless often and makes mistakes, she never makes the same mistake twice. Each of the big mistakes, Flavoring the cake wrong, dying her hair, falling off the roof... teach her something thing new and Anne begins to grow up and channel her imaginations and enthusiam into a much more mature way of life. Her and about 6 of the kids she has grown up with go off to college (the rivalry with Gilbert still entact, although at this point it is just for show after rufusing Gilberts last plea for forgivness over the years). Anne learns a lot and comes back to her beloved Green Gables a much distinguished young lady to some more life discovering incidents. This is such a wonderful story of growing up and better yourself. Anne is not perfect, but she tries very hard in life and shows that that is the most important thing. I absoulutely loved this story and cant wait to read the other books. This book had 240 pages.

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The Secret Journal of Brett Colton by Kay Lynn Mangum


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was such a great book!! It dealt with so many issues in this young girl's life, Kathy Colton. Kathy is a 15 year old girl in a family that she cant stand. The thing she cant stand the most is when her family goes off on their nightly tangent of never ending stories of a long passed away brother, Brett. Kathy was two years old when Brett died and doesn't remember him at all and feels left out, unimportant, and annoyed when her family starts talking about him and all the amazing things he did. The only thing about Brett for Kathy is this weird connection she feels somewhere inside her when she looks at his pictures. She cant figure it out. Kathy starts High school and is forced to start tutoring the oh-so-popular-and-handsome Jason West. Jason is a lot like Brett in that Brett and Jason both are some of the youngest QB of the Central High football team. Jason has grown up hearing stories of Brett. Brett even has a plague and picture and trophy in the trophy case at school that Kathy is constantly drawn towards. As Kathy gets to know Jason better, he becomes less and less repulsive to her. Jason struggles with his "cool" image and with just being who he really is. Kathy finds out Jason is a Mormon, and he loves to integrate religious stories into their tutoring sessions as much as he can. On Kathy's sixteenth birthday she receives a very special, unexpected gift from someone she thought she would never, ever know - her big brother Brett. Brett had died of Leukemia 14 years earlier and had written this journal to Kathy so that somehow she could remember him. He had adored her. Brett had also had a Mormon friend who loved to share his religion with him. Throughout Brett's journal and as he gets closer to the impending death that awaits him, he starts to study the religion and read the Book of Mormon and to feel that it is true. He tells of dreams he has about Kathy when she is older and she begins to dream of him too. Brett, Jason, and Kelly (Brett's High school friend) help Kathy to find herself, her family, and God. Now that she understands and knows the person that Brett was and that she will see him again someday, she helps her family through the pain that they are still suffering with. She helps Jason also in being brave enough to stand up to his friends, and reunites Kelly with her family and with Brett by letting him and her family read the journal too. This is a very sweet and inspiring story of Family, love, Faith, and growing up. I absolutely loved it, it meant a lot to me! This book has 334 pages.

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The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin



This book was interesting. It was very sad and parts were hard to read. Overall, I liked it. Something I have a hard time with in stories is when they are written simply to elicit an emotion, sadness, fear, anger, and for no other apparent reason. I don't think that this book was entirely like that but at points throughout the book that is how I felt. I liked where it ended up and how it was written. It was very interesting and I think a good book to raise awareness about child abuse and to teach about fear, family, and rising to the occasion. The story was basically a letter, written two years after the abuse had been stopped, to the youngest child in the family, Emmy, from the oldest, Matthew. Matthew had lived with their insane mother and learned to deal with her since birth. Matthews father, Ben, was kicked out and was too afraid of the mother, Nikki, to fight for Matthew and Callie. Emmy was born of another father. Matthew spent his entire life up to 13 protecting his baby sisters, and being partner with Callie in protecting little Emmy. At 13, Matthew and Callie meet Murdoch. This event happens at the beginning of the story but is really the changing point in their lives. It takes Matthew and Callie a long time to find him and when they do, Nikki ruins their plans of meeting him, but Murdoch (and Ben and Aunt Bobbie)eventually helps them out of their terrible situation. This is very much a coming of age story for Matthew. He learns about himself, who he is, what he is capable of, and what he deserves. Matthew starts out writing down all of the things that happened to him and his sisters "at the hands of thier mother" so that Emmy can understand their family and understand the world better, but he ends up writing it just for himself, to sort things out in his head and make sense of all that he went through. This book has 260 pages.

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Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was such a great book. Catherine Murdock really captured the teenaged view of life and the serious issues dealt with at that time, and she was very humorous and entertaining at the same time. Dairy Queen is about a girl, D.J. Schwenk, who lives on a dairy farm in Red Bend, Wisconsin. D.J.'s family have a struggling relationship, with many, many things left unsaid. D.J.'s father gets hurt, her two older brothers have moved away and completely detatched themselves from the family and her little brother is busy with baseball and school, that most of the farm work is left up to her. When the rival highschool's stuck up, spoiled, quaterback, Brian Nelson, gets sent to the Schwenks farm to learn a little work ethic things begin to get interesting in D.J's life. They start off hating each other and being quite rude to one another. Through a series of events involving the farm, Smut the dog, Amber- D.J.'s best friend, Jimmy Ott- Brians coach and D.J.'s friend, and a whole lot of football and training, things change between Brian and D.J. Brian helps D.J. learn what it means to be in a relationship with someone, friend or family. She learns to communicate and helps her family learn as well. One of the other big conflicts in the book is that D.J. is so worried that she is "a cow", just following others orders just because, not living her life for herself and the things she wants to do. She learns to be herself when she takes a risk in trying out for the highschool football team as the only girl ever to play as far as she knows. This was such a sweet story of all kinds of relationships, Mother-Daughter, Father-Daughter, Brother-Sister, Friends, First loves... I think that this would be a very beneficial book for young adults to read. This book had 274 pages and has at least one sequel that I know about, called Off Season.

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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved this book! I loved the way that Markus Zusak writes. I think that he is fresh and so descriptive and his reasons for writing this story made it all the more interesting. He grew up with his parents telling him stories like this and wanted to tell the mostly untold story of the German people. He is really good at characterization. It was very easy to get involved in and love the story and the characters. Leisel Meminger is the main character and the "book thief". The plot jumps around a bit throughout Liesels life but basically, Death, the narrator, sees Liesel steal her first book at her little brothers grave site. Leisel gets taken to a foster family in Molching Germany, where she meets her foster parents and her best friend Rudy. Leisel's real mother leaves and ends up dying. Leisel has no contact or details about her. Her Foster Mother is a rude and loud women. She calls Leisel a "Saumench" or something like that which means Pig in German. She yells and screams at pretty much anyone and everyone, but as Leisel gets to know her more she realizes that all the name calling is how she is showing her affection to her. Liesel seems to start to take after her in that too. Liesels Foster father is a sweet man who teaches Liesel to read and comforts her when she needs someone to hold her. He is a stronger man that he seems. He, in his quiet way, fights back against the things going on all around him, Nazism. They hide a Jew, Max Vandenburg, in thier basement who becomes another dear person in Leisels life. This book shows the struggle of a family who does not agree with treating others like most around them are. They don't like the "Furer" but are bound by his Tyranical rule and the frightening following by neighbors and friends even. Liesel and Rudy are forced to go to Hilter's Youth school and "Hiel Hilter" everywhere they go. Death sees Liesel a couple of more times until the end of the story when Molching is bombed and Leisel loses everything and everybody, including the book of her life she began writing. Death gives this book back when finally Leisel herself leaves this life years and years later.
This was such an amazing and eye opening book to the horrible things happening on both sides of the war.

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