YA
Wolff, Virginia Euwer. 1993. MAKE LEMONADE. New York: H. Holt. ISBN 9780805022285
PLOT SUMMARY - ANALYSISThis story is about teenage mom, Jolly, and her 14-year old friend LaVaughn, who tries to get Jolly’s life on track with the help of LaVaughn’s mom and teachers. LaVaughn takes a babysitting job with Jolly and discovers that she has a compulsion and almost an addiction to help Jolly and her two small kids. LaVaughn’s goal of saving money to go to college is in contrast to Jolly who seems to be overwhelmed by her circumstance in life.
A deadbeat job has Jolly living in an apartment where she struggles to pay the rent each month and has barely enough food and diapers for her children. Wolff’s description of the dirty living conditions for Jolly’s kids is so depressing with old food on the dishes and floor and the soiled state of the kids’ clothes. The reader can picture and almost smell the rotten state of Jolly’s life. “Those kids, that Jeremy and that Jilly were sloppy and droppy and they got their hands into things you’d refuse to touch. They acted their age so much they could make you crazy”(page 20).
The constant denial evident in Jolly’s speech throughout the book is a result of her absence of a family support system. The fact that Jolly lived alone from the age of twelve sets up the circumstances in the plot and lets LaVaughn’s character guide her future.
The format of the book is written in LaVaughn’s words and is arranged as a diary with short, numbered chapters. The dialogue of both Jolly and LaVaughn are reflective of a fourteen and seventeen year old. “LaVaughn's narrative--brief, sometimes ungrammatical sentences in uneven lines, like verse--is in a credible teenage voice suited to readers like Jolly herself; yet it has the economy and subtlety of poetry.” Kirkus Review starred (1993)
LaVaughn is in a “Steam” class where students work on their self-esteem and so she has this vulnerable side of her that wants Jolly to work on her self-esteem as well. LaVaughn has lost her father and Jolly did not have any parents so both girls share this void in their lives.
LaVaughn’s mother plays a minimal role in the story, as a constant reminder in LaVaughn’s head to keep her on her college track and to come only once to the rescue of Jolly.
The lemon seeds that LaVaughn brings to Jolly’s son, Jeremy, finally grow. Jolly finding her way back to high school with the insistence of LaVaughn gives Jolly the chance she needs to make lemonade out of the lemons in her life.
REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Book Links (ALA) 05/01/04
Publishers Weekly
Booklist starred
School Library Journal starred
Books for the Teen Age (NYPL) 03/01/97
Wilson’s Junior High School 01/09/10
Child Study Children’s Book Committee
Wilson’s Senior High School 11/01/02
CONNECTIONS
Wolff, Virginia Euwer. 2000. TRUE BELIEVER: A NOVEL. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers ISBN 9780689828270
· Partner this as a sequel to the book
McDonald, Janet. 2002. CHILL WIND. New York: Frances Foster Books, Farrar Straus Giroux. ISBN 9780374399580
· Partner this as another story of a teenage mom raising two kids
Wild, Margaret. 2004. ONE NIGHT. New York: Knopf. ISBN 9780375829208
· Partner this book as a free verse novel about a pregnant teenage mom, the result of a one-night stand
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