The Lemonade War

Jessie, the younger of the two protagonists, has just completed second grade and is about to be moved into the fourth grade because of her academic abilities. While she’s able to solve difficult problems quickly and enjoys reading, Jessie struggles to understand social cues and has had difficulty making friends in the past. Jessie says that “feelings [are] her weakest subject” (11). As Jessie makes friends with Megan Moriarty, she begins to learn how she can relate to other people.

Jessie also has difficult expressing her feelings, tending to bottle them up until she lets them out all at once. At the start of the novel, Jessie reads as a coping mechanism rather than dealing with her emotions. Over the course of the novel, this leads to several conflicts. Jessie and Evan’s reconciliation at the end of the novel implies that she’s better able to discuss her feelings, even though they first emerge as blind rage.

Mrs. Treski is a newly single parent who works in business. A secondary character, she works from home in her home office upstairs, so Evan and Jessie try to keep from bothering her most of the time. Mrs. Treski has a positive relationship with both of her children and maintains a healthy balance of supporting them and challenging them to solve their own problems.

Mrs. Treski also represents an underlying conflict to the children, as they hide their own problems for fear of saddening her like their father did when he left. Being a single, working parent, some things slip through the cracks for the children. For example, their fruit basket is full of fruit flies, and Mrs. Treski is absent through much of the novel. She comes through in important ways, however, wanting to spend time with her children watching fireworks and giving Jessie sage advice on empathy.

Megan Moriarty is a local girl who is in Evan’s class. Jessie befriends Megan and the two sell lemonade together over the last week of the summer. Evan also has a crush on Megan, which leads him to be jealous of the two girls’ friendship. Megan proves herself to be a good friend for Jessie, encouraging her with a comment card when Jessie has low self-esteem. She’s also generous and wishes to donate her lemonade earnings to a charity.