Finishing Books After the Event is Done, Part 2--"Dairy Queen."

After finishing What Else but Home, I tackled Catherine Gilbert Murdock's Dairy Queen. This was the event where we pretty much decided that the focus of our non-local kids' author events should be schools whenever possible. If we do an in-store event, it is icing on the cake, and also a way to at least give the author and event the publicity and outreach that goes along with our event calendar.

Murdock and I had a very nice conversation that evening, that was continued through email when her scarf dropped off the desk where we put it and she left it behind. I want to be absolutely clear here--she came back looking for it and I said it wasn't there. No, it wasn't on the desk, Daniel, it was on the floor. It's all about peripheral vision.

So it's my goal to read more kids' books and this seemed like a good choice, as our bookseller Pam had already talked it up to me, and with its Wisconsin setting, I have a better chance of selling it when I'm discussing it.

Dairy Queen is about DJ, a teenage girl who has effectively taken over the family farm. Her older brothers have moved away, her mom works nonstop at a school, and her dad's hip has left him at least termporarily incapacitated. Oh, and her younger brother is only 13. Naturally athletic, on the basketball team and all that, she gets some help when a family friend sends over the quarterback of their high school archrival to help out. And he's an ass. Or so the story begins.

A nice angsty voice, family problems galore, and successful enough to warrant two follow ups. Now I have my book to sell to teenage girls for fall, or at least the one I've recently read.