DJ Schwenk, girl football player extraordinaire, is back in action in the snappy second book of the Dairy Queen series. As her junior year of high school starts up, DJ is on top of the world: praised for her athletic performance, loving her work on the family dairy farm, and enjoying her clandestine relationship with handsome rival quarterback Brian Nelson.
DJ finds out soon enough that so much good can only last for so long—a whole herd of trouble is headed her way. In between defending her gay best friend from bullying, worrying over her secretive little brother’s increasingly strange behavior, and feeling deep public humiliation over the article that a major magazine publishes about her, DJ can’t imagine how things could be any worse. In case that weren’t enough stress for our tall tough heroine, DJ finds herself being forced to choose between football and basketball, getting benched, struggling with the bitter news that her boyfriend is embarrassed to be seen with her, and—worst of all—watching her talented football playing brother Win suffer a devastating spinal injury on live television.
What’s a Schwenk to do when the world comes tumbling down? DJ takes it on head first, dropping everything to rush to her injured brother’s aid. The pain of seeing Win bedridden and despairing is like nothing she has ever known. How do you get through to a brother who has lost everything, who indeed wishes that he were dead? And how, in the midst of all of that, can DJ even find room to take care of herself?
The Schwenks were raised to be hard workers, and DJ rises to each awful occasion, learning how to care of her friends and family along the way. Fans of Dairy Queen will cheer for this great sequel and look forward to the last installment of the trilogy, Front and Center. 276 pages.
Recommended by Molly Crumbley, Librarian.
