Make Lemonade

I recently finished Virginia Euwer Wolff's novel, "Make Lemonade". The book brought up many essential and real world issues. Some issues the characters were facing were poverty and death. The main character, Lavaughn, had lost her father when she was very young. He had been in a bad neighborhood during a shooting and had been accidentally shot. Lavaughn and her mom had been facing some financial problems, they were trying to save up for Lavaughn to go to college. To Lavaughn and her mother, they were severely struggling but, did not realize how fortune they were until they met someone who had even less.
Lavaughn and her mom decided that the best way to save up for college was for Lavaughn to get a job and chip in. As her other friends took jobs as cleaners, she chose to babysit. This was no regular babysitting job though, it changed everything. The mothers name was Jolly. She had two kids, Jilly and Jeremy. The minute Lavaughn walked into Jolly's home she knew she was in for handful of work. Beside the fact that the house was extremely small, the floors were covered with clothes and dishes were sprawled out around the house. Everything was dirty, old, and desperately needing repair. Although Lavaughn's mother opposed the job, she took it anyway. First of all, she needed the extra money and second, she knew that Jolly's life needed some fixing.
Later on in the story the author went deeper into the feelings and challenges the characters were facing. I liked the way Virginia Euwer Wolff eased the readers into getting to know the characters. By the middle of the book I learned that Jolly was struggling with a lot more than just tidying up. Both of her children were made from different fathers who both eventually left Jolly. She was being sexually harassed by her boss but keeping her mouth shut for the sake of losing her job which she eventually lost. And worse of all, she was struggling to maintain a stable life for her kids and being able to afford her house. Jolly had lived in a box on the street for most of her life. She had survived through the cold, and despair. She was a "strong soul" as Lavaughns mother exclaimed.
This book turned out to be one of my favorites. It was sad and at some times horrifying but memorable. Lavaughn had learned a very important lesson as the story progressed; never underestimate your life because other people have it much worse than you. She learned that although college was important to her, just getting by was hard for Jolly. This is why Lavaughn never left her side.