Maybe Curtis should try flunking English.
Find out what happens next in D.J.'s life
in the sequel to Dairy Queen,
The Off Season.
Reading Group Guide
The Schwenk family isn't very good at talking about problems. How does this affect each family member? How do you think your family would handle the kind of problems the Schwenks are facing?
D.J. does a lot of growing up over the course of the story. How do the other characters in the book grow up? What role does she play in this development?
Is D.J.'s father a sympathetic character? Why or why not?
D.J.'s mother is absent for much of the story. Why do you think this is? How would you react in her situation?
D.J. often identifies herself through her physical appearance. Do you think she has a healthy or unhealthy body image?
In what ways does Brian match and break the stereotype of a popular high school boy? How did your impression of him change over the course of the story?
Brian and D.J. both begin the story with very strong views of the world. What are some of their initial opinions, and how do these change over the course of the book? How do D.J. and Brian challenge each other?
D.J. and Brian are about to resume high school. What are some of the obstacles they'll face? What strengths and weaknesses do they each have in facing these obstacles?
Amber has a minor but critical role in Dairy Queen. How does her presence affect the story?
What do you think will happen to Curtis in eighth grade and high school?
Is D.J. an appropriate role model for fifteen-year-old girls? If she attended your school, would you consider her a role model?
Meet the author
How did you come up with the idea for this book?
It always sounds goofy, but I really did have a dream about a girl playing football against a boy she loves passionately. When I woke up, my first thought was "What an amazing premise for a story!" Followed by "Babe, you don't know one thing about football." But that kernel stayed with me, just kept growing in me for days, as I thought about it and worked it—dream or no, the story idea was just a lump, and I had to do a lot of shaping.
The reader learns a lot about life on a dairy farm—did you have to do much research?
My mother grew up on a dairy farm, smaller than D.J.'s but with that same feel of family labor (and family tension). When I was a kid we lived up the road from the sweetest, cleanest dairy farm I've ever seen. My sister and I would bike down to buy their amazing ice cream, we'd hunt for kittens in the hayloft and feed the calves, climb a perfect maple tree outside their back door. As I was writing the first draft of Dairy Queen, I kept a long list of dairy-related questions, and then I visited Art Webster—he's the dairy farmer, retired now—and quizzed him for several hours. He couldn't have been nicer or more helpful. He's one of the people I dedicated the book to; he's always been a surrogate grandfather to us.
Communication is hard for everyone in the Schwenk family, and the reader sees only D.J.'s thoughts. Is it a challenge to write about characters that don't say much?
The bigger challenge was explaining the characters from D.J.'s point of view. Her feelings for her father are so complicated that they really obscure his identity. For example, he's a good cook—burnt French toast notwithstanding—but we readers don't learn that until the end of the book when D.J. finally figures it out. I had the same trouble with Brian; I had so much trouble getting inside his head because I was too busy seeing him through D.J.
Did you always intend to include Oprah Winfrey in the story?
Meaning, did I dream about her on the sidelines, cheering my girl on? No. But she was so easy to integrate—her role came so naturally, much more smoothly than most of the other characters'. D.J.'s family might be tough farmers, but they can't identify or even give credit to their feelings, and it's destroying them. The family is collapsing. D.J., by trying in her own inarticulate way to tap in to Oprah, recognizes—or begins to recog—that talking about emotions and pain and resentment, all those hot buttons, isn't self-indulgent or whiny, but essential.
Why don't you give names to D.J.'s parents?
It's great—so many people don't even realize this, and then later they'll ask, "What was D.J.'s mother's name again?" For the record, both parents do have names in my head. But I was quite tickled by the notion that D.J. wouldn't ever provide them. I mean, why would she? She's still at an age where they're übermom and überdad. She doesn't see them having identities separate from her own.
You don't skirt around the complicated relationship D.J. has with Amber.
No, although it's not like I'm breaking new ground. I knew from the beginning that I'd have to address homosexuality at some point. Writing a story about a large, strong, assertive girl playing the hypermasculine sport of football really brings that issue to the fore. But—given the inspirational dream I'd had—I very much wanted D.J. to be straight, and I loved the contrast between the "butch jock" stereotype being forced on her and her own passionate feelings for Brian. In a way, she's forced to break just as many boundaries in her yearnings for a handsome, popular boy as Amber is in her yearnings for D.J. That said, I didn't originally intend for Amber to be gay. But D.J. needed to become increasingly isolated over the course of the summer, even from her best friend, and this seemed like an good way to develop her estrangement.
Has writing Dairy Queen changed you in any way?
It's made me a more forgiving person. One of my all-time favorite books is A Girl Named Zippy. I was so impressed with how empathetically Haven Kimmel treated all her characters, and I tried to apply that empathy and forgiveness in my own writing, to my interpretations of people, and even to my own past. For example, it's easy to be snide about cheerleaders, but I decided early on that I wouldn't. For one thing, D.J., by that point in the story, is going through so many traumas with her family that I couldn't pile on any more high school angst. But I also went to school with cheerleaders, I took classes with them, I was friends with a couple, and as far as I could tell they had blood and hearts and feelings just like the rest of us. It meant a lot to me, how supportive the cheerleaders in Dairy Queen were of D.J.
Also, I've become quite the milk drinker, even though I was a soy girl before this. And I now read the sports section every day. I'm pretty sure I'm never going to paint my face green, but I was as pleased as anyone (well, not anyone—Philadelphia has some pretty rabid football fans) when the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl.
What's the biggest surprise to come from Dairy Queen?
So many people have contacted me about their own farming experiences—that's something I never would have predicted, the amazing number of Americans who still have a personal connection to the farm, through a childhood friend or a relative, a community ... The soil isn't nearly as far away as I had thought. I also get a charge out of hearing all the interpreta tions that readers come up with—this is what I mean about writers not being omniscient. For example, I gave a copy of Dairy Queen to my dentist, and on my next visit he told me how great it was that I captured Curtis looking at his hands. (During the ride back from Madison, when he and D.J. are talking about his wanting to be a dentist, Curtis studies his hands.) "Hands are so important to a dentist," my own dentist said. "You really nailed that." I nodded, but actually I'd had no idea—I was simply trying to convey that Curtis was embarrassed. My dentist also said that he'd collected animal skulls when he was a kid, and agreed that it was very hard to locate intact mandibles. So that made me feel a little better, that just from my imagination I managed to produce a real-life detail. That sort of serendipity keeps me going.
You wrote Dairy Queen as a stand-alone novel. How does it feel now that it's the first book of a trilogy?
Isn't that funny? I wrote Dairy Queen never intending—never dreaming!—that there'd be a sequel, and then I wrote The Off Season the same way. I cannot imagine beginning a seven-book series; just the thought of so much
outlining makes me queasy. And yes, there are some elements to Dairy Queen I wished later that I could tweak. But not much. In fact, it's uncanny how Dairy Queen sets up the next two books. Beaner, for example. I always knew Beaner liked D.J., but even I didn't realize how much. Yet even in Dairy Queen, he's keeping tabs on Brian. I'd like to say this was intentional, but then people might expect me to be that smart all the time! I also love how D.J. develops across the three books. She's the same person throughout, but the trials she faces, and the work she puts into overcoming them, bring her so much insight and self-confidence and empathy ... so much maturity. She grows up. I love her at the beginning of Dairy Queen, but by the end of Front and Center I love her even more.
An excerpt from another critically acclaimed book by Catherine Gilbert Murdock!
Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of Her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts
"Your behavior is despicable!" the prince snapped.
"In what way?" I snapped back. "You have no cause to criticize me."
"No cause? I vowed, the moment I left that cursed Blue Room and your conniving sorcery, never to speak of what I had witnessed, and until this day I had no incentive to do so. Since our arrival in this demon castle, however, as I witness your handiwork, I cannot but fear for the preservation of all that I hold dear."
"My handiwork? As hostess and emissary?"
"Emissary? Hostess? Do not toy with me! I am no longer some innocent trapped by your lies and spell work! I demand, should you value your life and the lives of your people, to break at once the enchantment you have placed upon my father!"
So staggered was I by this fallacious and spiteful accusation that I nigh broke my ankle on the ridiculous heels on which I tottered. "Enchantment, you say? It is enchantment to practice dance for hour after hour, day after day, with a man who reeks of fish? To ride, and write, and prattle incessantly about nothing whatsoever? To stitch enough handkerchiefs to dam the Great River itself, and bully one's body into clothes more suitable for martyrs than ladies?" I snatched up one of my cursed slippers. "Does this smack of magic to you? Because allow me to inform you, my handsome young prince, that this be not enchantment—it be work!"
With that, I hurled the slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.) Marshaling what little dignity I yet possessed, I stomped down the corridor—challenging indeed with one shoe—and around the corner.
I lay awake for hours. The prince had no right, not one, to indict me so, and if I had held the slightest hope of the magic book's assistance, I would have climbed at once to my wizard room for a spell with which to punish him. Death, perhaps, or humiliation. A croaking frog would be nice, particularly a frog that retained Florian's dark eyes. I should keep it in a box and poke it occasionally with a stick; that would be satisfying indeed.
Calming myself in degrees with such pleasant notions, I drifted at last to sleep.
Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Dairy Queen
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends