Make Lemonade
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Average rating4
15
Ratings1
Average rating4
Viginia Euwer Wolff's groundbreaking novel, written in free verse, tells the story of fourteen-year-old LaVaughn, who is determined to go to college―she just needs the money to get there. When she answers a babysitting ad, LaVaughn meets Jolly, a seventeen-year-old single mother with two kids by different fathers. As she helps Jolly make lemonade out of the lemons her life has given her, LaVaughn learns some lessons outside the classroom.
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Make Lemonade is a beautifully written story about 14 year-old LaVaughn's after-school babysitting job for 17 year-old single mom Jolly. LaVaughn and Jolly are opposite sides of a coin: LaVaughn is an excellent student babysitting to save money for college, while Jolly is a high school dropout with two young children from different men. The lessons that they teach each other while learning to care for three year-old Jeremy and one year-old Jilly powerfully relate the value of friendship, hope, family, and perseverance. I loved the “not verse” verse narrative, which was nonetheless highly poetic, and that the quiet, everyday moments of the story are just as powerful as the more plot-driven portions of the novel. The two strong and yet very different protagonists create a potentially broad audience, although the slow, quietness of the plot, fragmented narrative, and verse-like format might be difficult for reluctant readers to stick with through the end.
