Wolff, Virginia Euwer. (1994). Make Lemonade. New York: Scholastic Inc., 200 pp.

Grade Level: 6-12

Genre: contemporary fiction

Summary, Critique & Awards

LaVaughn is a fourteen-year-old girl living with her mother in public housing with great aspirations of attending college. She would be first person in her family to earn her college degree. LaVaughn's mother is a single parent working diligently to provide for her daughter and improve their living conditions. Knowing her mother's income will not be enough to facilitate her college career, LaVaughn assumes a job as a babysitter for two young children. Their mother, Jolly, was formerly homeless and orphaned; she has no understanding of the responsibilities that come with being a mother. LaVaughn attempts to help Jolly, nearly sacrificing her own aspirations of leaving poverty.

This is a quality novel worth a class study, but might be best used in a literary circle or small group study. This book is not an ideal read-aloud since it is written in a stream of conscious style and may be difficult to follow orally. The light Make Lemonade sheds on the struggles people endure to provide for their families is valuable for all students of various socio-economic backgrounds. Make Lemonade is the first in a trilogy, documenting young LaVaughn's journey towards a better life including college. The highly acclaimed sequel, True Believer, chronicles LaVaughn's 15^th year.

Awards and Recognition

Oregon Book Award

The Golden Kite Award for Fiction.

American Library Association (ALA) Notable Children's Book

American Library Association (ALA) Best Book for Young Adults

Booklist Top of the List winner

Themes/Topics

Challenges and Triumphs

Families

Author Information

Virginia Euwer Wolff was born in Portland, Oregon. She attended Smith College and majored in English. For most of her adult life, she taught elementary school. Wolff took a break from teaching to raise children, and eventually returned to teaching as a secondary English teacher. In 1997, she left teaching to write full-time. Virginia Wolff currently lives in Oregon City, Oregon. She has written novels, short stories, and poetry for adolescents and adults. Wolff is currently working on the third and final young adult novel chronicling the life of LaVaughn.

For more information on Virginia Wolff:

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/wolff.htm A biography and bibliography for Wolff, as well as lesson plan ideas.

http://stanleymusic.org/features/wolff_interview/index.php An interview with Wolff.

Media Connections

Movies

Baby Love (1996) This documentary contains interviews with teen mothers from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds. The teen mothers discuss their views on love, sex, relationships, responsibilities and parenting.

Finding Forrester (2000) Considers themes like dreams, quests, and college bound poor youth. An inner-city youth with aspirations of higher education secretly befriends a reclusive, famous author who mentors the youth's writing talents.

Hoop Dreams (1994) A documentary about two inner-city African-American teenagers who are extremely talented on the basketball court and desire to play for the NBA.

Smoke Signals (1998) Two youths from the Couer d'Alene Indian Reservation travel to pay respect to one of the youth's estranged, deceased father.

Online Resources

http://www.storknet.com/cubbies/parenting/finances.htm This link is a helpful resource for single moms who will need financial assistance. It easily describes the resources available and how to find them locally:

http://www.humanservicesinc.org/school.htm The Florence Crittenton School is an academic program, similar to the one that Jolly participates in, that provides childcare and outreach services for teen mothers who are attending school for their diploma or GED. This link has resources for teen mothers and is considered an exemplary educational program.

http://www.ed.gov/programs/campisp/index.html Information about the Child Care Access Means Parents in Schools Program.

http://www.ed.gov/programs/trioupbound/index.html Upward Bound main page. Upward Bound is a TRIO program that is designed to make first generation college students successful.

Related Texts

Paulsen, Gary. (1994). The Car. New York: Harcourt Brace. 180 pp. A fourteen-year-old boy is abandoned by his parents. He fixes a car and takes a road-trip with a Vietnam Vet.

Peters, Julie Anne. (2000). Define Normal. Boston: Little Brown. 196 pp. Two teenage girls meet in a peer-counseling program. The girls come from different backgrounds but need each other.

Ryan, Pam, M. (2000) Esperanza Rising. New York: Scholastic Press. 262 pp. Winner of the Pura Belpré Award and mentioned as a YALSA"2001 Best Books for Young Adults." Esperanza and her mother leave Mexico to work as migrant farm-workers in Southern, California. They face many struggles including the harsh circumstances of life as migrant farm-workers and the beginning of the Great Depression. The author has a web-site with curriculum links: http://www.pammunozryan.com/

Shusterman, Neal. (1999). Downsiders, Simon & Schuster. 246 pp. An American Library Association "Young Adult Best Book" for 2000. Sci-fi story about a teen-age boy who lives under the streets of NY, in a community called the Downside. The Downsiders never venture into the Topside – the streets of NY. However, the young boy, Talon, makes a friend on the Topside.

Weiss, Jerry and Helen (eds.) (2000). Lost and Found: Award-Winning Authors Sharing Real Life Experiences Through Fiction. New York: Forge, 223 pp. Short stories based on life experiences.

Teaching Ideas

(1) "Quick-Writes: Leads to Literacy" This activity is designed to give students an opportunity to respond to a piece of literature in multiple ways. Students may use their responses to create pieces of published texts or simply as a text experiment. Using an overhead projector or computer, display the excerpt from Make Lemonade, by Virginia Euwer Wolff.

"There's no class to teach me communication with dead ones.

That's what I want.

I want to talk to my Dad. One conversation. That's all. One.

I want to ask him if we'd still be living the same place

if he was alive.

I want to ask him

did he love my mother when they had me.

I mean love her to stay with her her whole life if he could of.

I want to ask him would he help me pay for college

if he could come back alive.

I want to ask him should I be a teacher.

I want to ask him will things turn out okay.

Is that too much to ask?

I don't want to ask him how bad it hurt.

I don't want to know that."

After reading the piece, ask students to try one of the following responses:

Think of someone who you have cared deeply about who may have passed away or moved far away. Using Wolff's phrase,"I want…" and her style of linking one thing after another, write out all of the things you want from this person as quickly as you can. Take 1-3 minutes to complete.

Borrow a line from the passage above and write whatever comes to mind.

Free-write on any thoughts that this passage brings to mind.

[Summarized/adapted from the writer's workshop section in Voices from the Middle, September 2002, written by Linda Rief.]

(2) "Character Recipe" This is a concise and entertaining way to engage students in character analysis.

Pre-writing:

Students will select a character from the text that they are currently reading.

Students will make lists of character traits, qualities, idiosyncrasies etc, using language and clues from the text.

Students will also list events and occurrences that shaped the character.

Provide one or two sample recipes to give students a model and then let them go!

Writing: Tell students to create the recipe.

Revising: Add instructions and additional ingredients to give the recipe a personality. Students could ask their peers to proofread their recipes to make sure that the instructions are clear and make logical sense.

Proofreading: Check spelling, grammar, abbreviations.

Publication: Recipes can and should include artwork, color and other appropriate creative techniques.

Sample from Make Lemonade

By Kerry Galea

Recipe for Jolly (from Make Lemonade)

3 cups of hard-luck

½ cup of poverty

3 teaspoons of education

a dash of isolation

1 and ½ cups of laughter to cope

2 children separated from fathers

Sift the hard-luck, poverty and laughter together. Separate children from fathers. Mix in the two children from different fathers into the hard-luck batter. Separately mix the 3 teaspoons of education into one dirty apartment. Stir marginally well, don't bother scraping the sides of the apartment. Continue to stir, adding in the isolation. Fold in the contents of the dirty apartment into the hard-luck batter. Let ingredients rest in the bowl until they rise. Once the batter has doubled in size, bake at 450 for 1 hour.

Result: One woman who is slowly changing her life for her children. Serves three.

[Summarized/adapted from "Character Casserole" by Warren Bowe in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. August 2002.]

(3) "Song Lyrics as Prompts" One of the most compelling traits of Jolly's was her sense of isolation and loneliness. One of my favorite songs reminds me of the feelings that Jolly portrays in Make Lemonade. The purpose of this writing assignment is to get the creative juices flowing by reading and listening to song lyrics and imagining a story behind them. Any favorite song could do. Since "Rain King" by the Counting Crows reminded me of Jolly, I am using an excerpt here.

Mama, why am I so alone?

I can't go outside

I'm scared I might not make it home

I'm alive but I'm sinking in

If there's anyone at home at your place

Why don't you invite me in?

Prewriting:

Hand out lyrics

Play song to class.

Brainstorm in journals/notebooks about what the story might be.

Play the song again with question prompts:

What events might take place in your story?

Who might the character(s) in this story be?

Tell me about them.

Class shares ideas with each other

Writing:

Teacher Directions:

"We are going to use this song as a guide for writing a story. It might be a great way to start by underlining your favorite lines of the song. You might use the lyrics as the philosophies/feelings of your character or as the building blocks in your character's life story. You may want to be the main character, make a friend or family member the main character, or create a whole new person."

Follow Up Writing Activity:

With guidelines, students may bring in their own song lyrics and use their favorite songs to jumpstart stories.

[Summarized/adapted from "Using Favorite Songs as Prompts" by Michael Fulton, in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. August 2002.]

(Review written by Kerry Galea edited by Jennifer E. Moore)