Make Lemonade by Virginia Ewer Wolff

BABYSITTER WANTED BAD read the notice on the school bulletin board. LaVaughn is fourteen. Jolly the owner of the bulletin board notice is only seventeen with one not quite three and the other not quite crawling. Jolly is in a bad situation. Her apartment is a wreck. Her life is a wreck. LaVaughn can clearly see Jolly desperately needs help. LaVaughn convinces her mother that she can handle the job and still keep her grades up. And besides, this job will help her make some money to save up for her dreams of college. LaVaughn’s mother knows this is true. It is the thing that finally convinces her. LaVaughn’s mother has a good job and works hard to provide for herself and her daughter. But since LaVaughn’s dad died, money is tight, and there is no way her mom can pay for LaVaughn’s college education on her own. LaVaughn’s mom wants her to have a better life than her own beyond government housing and gang writing on the walls. Things go okay for a while until Jolly comes home late one night with a face like hamburger. Another night she doesn’t come home at all. Finally Jolly comes home and says she’s been fired. She can’t pay LaVaughn to sit with her children anymore, but she can’t look for another job without a sitter. Jolly refuses to go to the welfare office. She fears they will take her children away. LaVaughn has really become fond of Jolly and her children, but she can’t keep her children for free. Should she give Jolly her college savings? What good would that do? LaVaughn doesn’t want herself to end up like Jolly, poor, uneducated, and hopeless. LaVaughn must find a way for Jolly to help herself, but how? Read Virginia Euwer Wolff’s Make Lemonade. Can LaVaughn get Jolly the help she must have? Will Jolly have the will power to do what she must to keep her children and raise them all above poverty and despair?