Make Lemonade
By Virginia Euwer Wolff
Henry Holt & Co.
New York
1993
ISBN 0805022287
Ages: Young Adult
"But nobody told me," is an excuse I've heard a hundred times, and I've used it plenty myself-- probably because I just wasn't paying attention. I had plenty of folks around me telling me what I needed to know about life, but Jolly had no one-- no security net or support system for her and her two babies-- except for LaVaughn. Jolly refuses public assistance because she's afraid they'll take away her babies. Thanks to LaVaughn, though, she eventually does get a break and a helping hand that starts her on the road to better her situation. I have to admire her tenacity and willingness to keep trying for the sake of her children.
I listened to Make Lemonade first with an audio book, and I loved hearing Heather Alicia Simms voice as LaVaughn telling the story through her perspective. Then I checked out the book to see how it looked in print. I was surprised to see that the paragraphs are organized in verse, like poetry. I noticed through the audiotapes that it did have a certain rhythm about it, but I gave credit to the reader, Simms, for making that happen. A narrator can make or break a reading, but seeing it in print, it's obvious that it was primarily the author's writing that made it ring true and gave it a great rhythm. I was wondering who this wonderful Black writer was that captured this slice of life so well. I looked on the back of the audio book cover and was surprised to see that the author was white. I wondered what inspired her to write this story, and she answers that inside the back cover of the book. When Wolff was a young mother, she had to put her babies in an old plastic-upholstered high chair from the Salvation Army that she could never get clean. It completely overwhelmed her at the time. She says that even now she could pick it out from a million others. "Jolly, Jilly, and Jeremy came straight out of that dirty high chair," she says.
I went back and re-read sections of the book. It's just different listening and reading-- I enjoy both, but sometimes I miss things when I'm listening because my eyes aren't glued to words and are seeing other things while listening, which allows my mind to wander at times.
I love all the connections to the lemon in this story, too, from the lemon seeds that wouldn't grow-- to the story about the old woman who turned a bad situation (the lemon) into something good (lemonade), hence, the title. And at the end, that last group of lemon seeds finally started to grow, like the good things finally happening in Jolly's life.