Make Lemonade

Make Lemonade by Wolff, Virginia Euwer. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780805022285.

Jolly is seventeen. She cant really spell. She doesnt have much of a job. And she has two little kids from two different, absent fathers. Jolly knows she cant cope with Jilly and Jeremy all by herself. So she posts a notice on the school bulletin board: BABYSITTER NEEDED BAD. No one replies but Verna LaVaughn, whos only fourteen. How much help can she be? For a while, Jolly, Jilly, Jeremy, and LaVaughn are an extraordinary family. Then LaVaughn takes the first steps toward building her own future, and Jolly begins the longs low process of turning the lemons of her life into lemonade. Written in sixty-six chapters with text lines that break at natural speaking phrases, this is a startling novel by an extraordinary writer.