Jolly is seventeen. She can't really spell. She doesn't have much of a job. And she has two little kids from two different, absent fathers.Jolly knows she can't cope with Jilly and Jeremy all by herself. So she posts a notice on the school bulletin board: BABYSITTER NEEDED BAD. No one replies but Verna LaVaughn, who's only fourteen. How much help can she be?For a while, Jolly, Jilly, Jeremy, and LaVaughn are an extraordinary family. Then LaVaughn takes the first steps toward building her own future, and Jolly begins the longs low process of turning the lemons of her life into lemonade.Written in sixty-six chapters with text lines that break at natural speaking phrases, this is a startling novel by an extraordinary writer. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

``Radiant with hope, this keenly observed and poignant novel is a stellar addition to YA literature,'' said PW in a starred review, praising Wolff's use of ``meltingly lyric blank verse'' to tell of two inner-city teenage girls struggling toward better lives. Ages 12-up. (Aug.) From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr 7-12-- ``This word COLLEGE is in my house,/ and you have to walk around it in the rooms/ like furniture.'' So LaVaughn, an urban 14-year-old, tries to earn the money she needs to make college a reality. She and her mother are a solid two-person family. When LaVaughn takes a job babysitting for Jolly, an abused, 17-year-old single parent who lives with her two children in squalor, her mother is not sure it's a good idea. How the girl's steady support helps Jolly to bootstrap herself into better times and how Jolly, in turn, helps her young friend to clarify her own values are the subjects of this complex, powerful narrative. The themes of parental love, sexual harassment, abuse, independence, and the value of education are its underpinnings. LaVaughn is a bright, compassionate teen who is a foil for Jolly, whose only brief role model was a foster parent, Gram, who died. The dynamics between the two young women are multidimensional and elastic--absolutely credible. LaVaughn's mother is a complete character, too, and even Jolly's kids become real. The tale is told in natural first-person, and in rhythmic prose arranged in open verse. The poetic form emphasizes the flow of the teenager's language and thought. The form invites readers to drop some preconceptions about novels, and they will find the plot and characters riveting. Make Lemonade is a triumphant, outstanding story. --Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr. 7-12. Wolff's latest novel stretches her considerable talents in a new direction. Written in a riveting, stream-of-consciousness fashion, with the lines laid out on the page as if they were the verses of a poem, the book plunges into the depths of inner-city poverty. But instead of focusing on the gangs that spread fear in city tenements, Wolff writes about ordinary folks trying to get by as best they can. Fourteen-year-old LaVaughn, clever yet still naive, wants to go to college, a word that bears such weight in her home "you have to walk around it in the rooms like furniture." To earn money, she takes a baby-sitting job with 17-year-old Jolly, a proud young woman with two small children. LaVaughn's reactions to Jolly and the children, described in her colorful personal idiom, are mixed with the stories that anchor her own life and enriched by a strong sense of place. There's humor as well as anguish in the tableaux she sets before us, with some of the funniest and most stirring scenes revolving around Jolly's children, both fully realized characters. Revealing as well are interactions between LaVaughn and her single-parent mother, from whom LaVaughn has obviously inherited stubbornness and a healthy measure of good sense. Jolly's problems provide the book's drama. Barely more than a child herself, she has no idea how to "take hold," as LaVaughn's mother says, and it's ironic that it is someone younger than Jolly, an outsider, who shows her the way. Rooted not in a particular culture, but in the community of poverty, the story offers a penetrating view of the conditions that foster our ignorance, destroy our self-esteem, and challenge our strength. That education is the bridge to a better life is the unapologetic, unmistakable theme, symbolized by the sprouting of the lemon seeds LaVaughn plants for Jolly's children. At once disturbing and uplifting, this finely nuanced, touching portrait proudly affirms our ability to reach beyond ourselves and reach out to one another. ~--Stephanie Zvirin From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.