A Study Guide for Virginia Euwer Wolff's "Make Lemonade"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Virginia Euwer Wolff's "Make Lemonade," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jun 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535828000

Book preview

10

Make Lemonade

Virginia Euwer Wolff

1993

Introduction

Virginia Euwer Wolff's award-winning 1993 novel Make Lemonade tells the story of Jolly, a seventeen-year-old unwed mother of two small children, and LaVaughn, the fourteen-year-old girl who takes it upon herself to help Jolly make a better life for herself and her children, though the odds are against them.

Written as a verse novel to reflect the scattered, somewhat free-association way teens often think and speak, the book is unique in other ways as well. Wolff never reveals the race of her characters, nor does she give them a last name or place them in a specific geographic location. By eliminating those elements, Wolff opened up her novel to individual interpretation, allowing readers to make the characters into whoever they need them to be.

Make Lemonade does not shy away from tough issues and themes. Wolff covers themes of choice and resulting consequences and hope while tackling controversial, realistic issues today's teens face: pregnancy, poverty, sexual harassment, and single parenthood. She encourages her readers to explore concepts such as the nature of family, the value of education, and the ethics of Welfare assistance.

Wolff supports this reality-based content with a format and style that, if not used judiciously, would fail. The entire novel is written in free verse from the perspective of LaVaughn. The language is not perfect, and the grammar is at times incorrect. This is the language of the atrisk, inner-city, public-housing student, and it lends an air of realism to the plotline. The book reads almost like a diary, filled with a reporting of events, but also observations, thoughts, and memories.

Make Lemonade resonated with young-adult readers upon publication, and time has done nothing to decrease its popularity. The book has won numerous awards, including the Booklist Editor's Choice award and the magazine's Top of the List award.

Author Biography

Wolff was born on August 25, 1937, in Portland, Oregon. The second of two children, she lived with her brother and parents on a farm that included a log house that was without electricity until the author reached the age of eight. Hers was a loving home, filled with music and reading. Wolff's tranquil childhood was disrupted by her father's death. Five-year-old Wolff stayed on the farm with her brother and mother until she was sent to boarding school at age sixteen.

After graduation from Smith College in 1959, Wolff used her English degree to become a teacher at a junior high school in the Bronx in New York. Life in the city was an eye-opening experience. I was hit with new sights, sounds and smells—crowds of people, all speaking different languages. The impact was tremendous, Wolff recalled in an interview with Lynda Brill Comerford of Publishers Weekly.

That same year, Wolff married Art Wolff. The couple had a son and daughter, but the marriage ended in 1976. After a year of teaching in the Bronx,