Book Review: The Lemonade War

A big and crucial push for our school around literacy is more home-school connections around reading and writing. Families have to be involved in the literacy lives of their children. With that in mind, our school decided to give every students a book to read over this summer, with helpful hints to parents on the importance of reading aloud and suggestions for how to use the book at home. The committee chose one book for the entire school. We are reading The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies, a book I had heard about before but had never opened. (My son had read it and gave it a shrug when I asked if he liked it. A shrug means he read it but would not read it again, nor recommend it much to friends).

The story of The Lemonade War unfolds around two siblings — Evan and Jessie — as they compete against each other for earning the most money. These two are locked into a sibling rivalry that neither of them really likes. The problem is that Evan, going into fourth grade, is not a strong student while Jessie, a second grader, is highly intelligent, but has some asperger’s qualities about her. And she is jumping over third grade to enter fourth grade, in the same class as her older brother.

I liked the book fine enough, I guess, but the one thing that kept gnawing at me as I reading the book — and it was something that I could not shake loose — was the believability of the ages of Evan and Jessie. There is no way these two kids are that young. The dialogue, the inner thoughts, the actions — it all pointed to kids who are older by at least a year or two. I could not buy it and that annoyed me to no end as I was reading. I know plenty of second and fourth graders (even gifted ones, like Jessie) and I am sorry — Davies did not capture the kids I know here.

But, the theme of siblings fighting and then resolving a difficult problem — coupled with a broken marriage and friendship issues — is a worthy point of talk for a school-wide book. I sort of wish we had gone with something with more adventure and exciting plot, though, so that the summer reading didn’t feel like so much of a … eh … school assignment. I wonder how my boys did with this book? I guess I will find out in a few weeks when the new year begins.

Peace (in the war),
Kevin

 

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