This author has a knack for using spare language to create really full characters. I don't really know how she does it. The people in this story are alive - the young, uneducated mother Jolly, her two little kids, and the fourteen year old babysitter LaVaughn are completely real and complicated people. I find myself caring so much about what happens to them that I have to keep thinking about them and trying to figure them out. ( )

ALA BBYA. RGG: Written in free verse, a story about a teenage girl's connection to an unwed mother and her two young children. Really a story about overcoming adversity.

Bit flabbergasted why a novella of approx. 30k words needs 66 chapters plus a prologue but oh well.

It was an okay story, if a bit oddly structured. End is dissatisfying. The characters are realistic. The story is well thought out. Was just okay for me to read though. ( )

ALA BBYA. RGG: Written in free verse, a story about a teenage girl's connection to an unwed mother and her two young children. Really a story about overcoming adversity.

This is a readable, teachable, discussable book about poverty and social justice and ethics. - See more at: http://www.parenthetical.net/2015/02/03/review-make-lemonade-by-virginia-euwer-w... ( )