Bibliographic Citation: Wolff, Virginia Euwer. Make Lemonade. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1993.
Plot Summary:
Fourteen year old LaVaughn, has a goal in life, and that is to go to college. She begins to make her goal attainable by looking for a job. When she finds a babysitting job, she thinks it is a perfect part time job. Seventeen year old Jolly, is a single teenage mother of two, who works the evening shift and is in need of a babysitter; and this is how LaVaughn and Jolly meet.
LaVaughn goes to Jolly's house and she feels sorry for the kids, Jeremy and Jilly, who are dirty and live in a dirty apartment, but she takes the job. Soon after she begin working, Jolly gets fired from her job and has no way of paying LaVaughn for babysitting. LaVaughn encourages Jolly to go back to school and she still helps her by babysitting for free. Eventually Jolly finds free day care for her kids and she is able to go back to high school.
My Impressions of the Book:
This is one of those books that make you think about those less fortunate and what obstacles they face to succeed in this world. This book takes you into the world of a young teenage mother, struggling to make something of herself and make a better life for her kids. As you read this book, you can't help but feel sympathy for Jolly and her two kids, and you just want her to make it through all her obstacles. Through this book you get a glimpse into the world of poverty and the underprivileged, and just when you think your life is tough, you think of Jolly and everyone she represents in this world, and you can't help but count your blessings.
Review(s) About the Book:
School Library Journal
Wolff, Virginia Euwer. Make Lemonade. Holt. 2006. 200p. ISBN 978-0-8050-8070-4. $7.95.
Jolly is the 17-year-old mother of Jeremy and Jilly. She needs a babysitter. Enter 14-year-old LaVaughn, as street naïve as she is book smart. Together the two girls exist as a sort of family until the differences between them lead them on separate paths, each one making lemonade from the lemons in her life.
Why It Is for Us: Wolff’s free-verse style depicts the harsh realities of parenting in urban poverty with equal parts grit and grace. The reader roots for both girls and for a more hopeful future. Luckily, the book is the first in a trilogy. The story is continued in Printz Honor winner True Believer (2001) and will be completed in this year’s This Full House. [Originally published in 1993.]
Jolly is the 17-year-old mother of Jeremy and Jilly. She needs a babysitter. Enter 14-year-old LaVaughn, as street naïve as she is book smart. Together the two girls exist as a sort of family until the differences between them lead them on separate paths, each one making lemonade from the lemons in her life.
Why It Is for Us: Wolff’s free-verse style depicts the harsh realities of parenting in urban poverty with equal parts grit and grace. The reader roots for both girls and for a more hopeful future. Luckily, the book is the first in a trilogy. The story is continued in Printz Honor winner True Believer (2001) and will be completed in this year’s This Full House. [Originally published in 1993.]
Reading Matters Website
This book is absolutely unforgettable. It's just a story about fourteen-year-old La Vaughn who takes on a babysitting job. She needs to work her way through school to save enough money to get through college. That's how it is in America. She means to study, to get a better job, to escape the poverty that she is growing up in.
She babysits for Jolly, a lone and inadequate, seventeen-year-old mother of two, Jeremy and Jilly. Now, the place where this little family live is absolutely disgusting. Like La Vaughn says, you really don't want to know this, but she tells you anyway. The children are filthy and deprived of all the good things in life. No decent food, no bus trips out anywhere, no learning at home, no stable basics at all. But, Jolly loves them fiercely.
Things go well enough at first. Jolly works an evening shift and La Vaughn babysits from the finish of school until late in the evening. La Vaughn works hard to look after the children and complete all her homework every night. And she takes pride in herself and her work because she's nicely brought up. She really does her best for Jeremy and Jilly. She spends time playing with them and teaching them and cleaning them and comes to love them. While Jolly is working she can afford to pay La Vaughn and La Vaughn's bank account, her own escape route, grows satisfactorily.
For full review:
http://www.readingmatters.co.uk/book.php?id=50
She babysits for Jolly, a lone and inadequate, seventeen-year-old mother of two, Jeremy and Jilly. Now, the place where this little family live is absolutely disgusting. Like La Vaughn says, you really don't want to know this, but she tells you anyway. The children are filthy and deprived of all the good things in life. No decent food, no bus trips out anywhere, no learning at home, no stable basics at all. But, Jolly loves them fiercely.
Things go well enough at first. Jolly works an evening shift and La Vaughn babysits from the finish of school until late in the evening. La Vaughn works hard to look after the children and complete all her homework every night. And she takes pride in herself and her work because she's nicely brought up. She really does her best for Jeremy and Jilly. She spends time playing with them and teaching them and cleaning them and comes to love them. While Jolly is working she can afford to pay La Vaughn and La Vaughn's bank account, her own escape route, grows satisfactorily.
For full review:
http://www.readingmatters.co.uk/book.php?id=50
Use in Library Setting:
I would promote this book to specific school organizations/ clubs that raise awareness to young girls. So, if a topic is teen pregancy, then this book can be introduced and encouraged to read so teens can see the effects of teen pregnancy.
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