This was a nice YA book, set in Texas with, what is to me, such a different culture. The girl joins FFA (Future Farmers of America) so that she can be the FFA Sweetheart in the town’s annual Christmas parade. This was recommended to me and I was immediately drawn to the cover since it features a bantam black rosecomb rooster and when I was a kid we had one named Ralphie. He was a feisty nasty little guy and like to attack you and put runs in your stocking. And yet I remember him fondly!
To take part in FFA Austin has to have a farm project, which is how she ends up raising the rooster. Austin’s woes in life are that her dad died and her mom refuses to talk about him, and the town rich kid/meanie has had it in for her for years. Throughout the year Austin finds some true friends in the FFA and she also finds courage in herself to deal with her woes.
Best most fascinating scene for this New Jersey person? Arm wrestling catfish! (and the images of that scene were front and center in my mind when I was canoeing and swimming in a river recently.)
