Make Lemonade

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.