60 pages • 2 hours read
Jacqueline DaviesThe Lemonade War
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Lemons Into Lemonade
At the end of the novel, Evan and Jessie’s poster shows their audience how to turn “lemons into loot,” a reference to the adage that you should “turn lemons into lemonade,” or make the most of a bad situation. Evan and Jessie are frequently challenged to make the best out of a difficult situation, whether in lemonade stand sales or otherwise. The adage mirrors the way the children struggle to have positive familial relationships in the aftermath of a divorce and how they recover their money at the end of the novel after having lost their lemonade earnings.
Friendship
Every child in The Lemonade War deals with issues of finding and keeping good friends. Evan struggles with the social dynamics of his all-boy friend group, most of whom willingly accept Scott Spencer into their fold. Evan doesn’t like Scott and has difficulty expressing this externally. Jessie, on the other hand, has trouble with making friends in the first place, frequently avoiding thoughts about the mean girls from her class in second grade. Even Megan expresses her feelings about which girls like her and don’t like her when Jessie presses Megan to make phone calls for their franchise.
The emotional weight of finding and making friends can make any young person stressed. When Jessie and Evan begin talking about Jessie’s new partnership with Megan, Evan gets very upset, shouting, “You can-not be her friend. You can-not be her friend!” (61). This kind of outburst makes sense for Evan, who has been hiding his feelings fort Megan. For Evan to feel resolution about this conflict, he must feel sure that Jessie’s friendship won’t limit his ability to spend time with Megan.
In a different way, Jessie is worried about making new friends in the fourth grade class. She only begins to feel relief after Megan writes her a kind, reassuring note on an index card. Thus, Jessie feels more confident in her ability to find and make friends. In both situations, the children need someone else to help them process their fear about friendship to reach a more positive state of mind.
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By Jacqueline Davies
