First published in 1993, Virginia Euwer Wolff’s Make Lemonade is a young adult novel written in free verse. The novel received numerous awards, including the Golden Kite Award for Fiction and the Parents’ Choice Book Award, and was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and School Library Journal Best Book. While Wolff herself defines her novel as “prose” with “stanzas” rather than poetry, she includes poetic imagery and innovative use of language and grammar throughout the novel.

Make Lemonade is narrated by 14-year-old Verna LaVaughn, who lives with her single mother in a lower-class urban area. At the opening of the novel, LaVaughn tells readers she’s recounting the events of the book “just the way it went,” “including the parts [she’s] not sure about” (3). Her sometimes-grammatically-incorrect, stumbling voice reflects the realities of life for a teen in the inner city.

As the novel begins, LaVaughn, hoping to earn money for college and escape her impoverished surroundings, answers an ad for a babysitting job. She is surprised to find the ad was posted by a 17-year-old single mother, Jolly, mother to 2-year-old Jeremy and baby Jilly. Jolly lives in an even more run-down and crime-ridden building than LaVaughn’s, and her apartment is filthy. LaVaughn is unsure about the job, but when Jeremy reaches for LaVaughn’s hand and Jolly, who works full time in a factory, says she can’t handle things on her own, LaVaughn decides to accept the position.

LaVaughn’s mother, who has always encouraged her daughter’s dream of attending college, is concerned that babysitting will interfere with LaVaughn’s studies. Still, she allows LaVaughn to take the job. When she begins babysitting, LaVaughn brings Jeremy a pot of soil and lemon seeds to plant, explaining that if he cares for the seeds and has patience they’ll grow into something “beautiful” (25). However, the seeds don’t grow, and several times throughout the novel LaVaughn brings Jeremy new seeds in the hope that these will be the ones to germinate.

LaVaughn’s grades do start to slip, and both her mother and friends express concern about her job. However, LaVaughn continues to forge a close bond with both the children and Jolly herself. One night, Jolly comes home with her face “scraped/like it had a grater taken to it” (33), and since Jolly has no family, LaVaughn calls her own mother. LaVaughn’s mother does help to clean Jolly’s wound, but she thinks Jolly is “‘a mess’” (36) and is even more worried about LaVaughn working for Jolly.

LaVaughn works through several milestones with Jeremy, potty-training him and teaching him to make his bed. LaVaughn and Jolly learn more about each other: LaVaughn reveals that her father died when she was young, and Jolly says she was homeless and lived in a refrigerator box. Then Jolly comes home one night without a job; she has been fired after fighting back against her boss’s sexual harassment. Jolly tries to report him but is ignored, and her efforts to find another job are fruitless. LaVaughn babysits Jolly’s children for free and even uses her own money to buy Jeremy shoes. She takes Jolly with her to her Steam Class, as the school calls self-esteem class, but Jolly seems embarrassed and uncomfortable in a school environment.

LaVaughn learns that if Jolly returns to school, her kids will receive free daycare, but Jolly is reluctant to accept social services because she’s afraid the state will take her children away. Despite her fear, Jolly does join the Moms Up program, and for the first time in years, she attempts to study and takes pride in getting good grades. She also learns parenting and safety skills, and her children receive medical care, including glasses for Jeremy. Jolly has trouble balancing study time with parental responsibilities, so LaVaughn returns to babysitting one hour a day while Jolly does homework.

Jolly and LaVaughn next have their biggest fight of the novel, as LaVaughn accuses Jolly of handling birth control the same way she does most things: “part way” (131). However, the two quickly reconcile. Jolly works hard on a school assignment for which she writes a letter to a billionaire, and the billionaire writes back and promises to give Jolly money when she receives her GRE. In addition, Jolly reveals that before living on the streets, she had a foster mother she called “Gram” and briefly experienced life with a real family.

Jolly tells LaVaughn an inspirational story she learned in school about a poor woman who made lemonade for her children from the old, sour lemon that life had given her. Jolly, too, seems to be making lemonade from life’s lemons, as she’s working hard to receive an education and improve her own and her children’s lives. Then Jilly chokes on a plastic spider leg, and Jolly must use the CPR training she received in school to save her daughter. Jeremy dials “9” on the phone, the beginning of 911, and helps to save his sister as well. While LaVaughn finishes the 911 call, Jolly has already removed the obstruction from Jilly’s airway on her own.

LaVaughn is impressed by Jolly’s dedication to saving her daughter, and when she tells her mother what happened, LaVaughn’s mother praises Jolly as well. However, at this point Jolly pulls away from LaVaughn, no longer using her as a babysitter or even speaking to her. By the end of the novel, Jolly is close to receiving her GRE, but LaVaughn has “been broken off,/like part of her bad past” (198).

LaVaughn now has a job cleaning a church and is still focused on attending college. However, Jolly does briefly reconnect with LaVaughn to tell her “‘a little lemon thing’” (199) is growing from the seeds LaVaughn helped Jeremy plant. As the novel ends, LaVaughn remembers her mother twirling Jeremy through the air, congratulating him for saving his sister. Ending with an image of hope, LaVaughn describes Jeremy as “a cheerful child” (200) looking down at LaVaughn’s mother, who has “her mouth wide open and full of praise” (200).