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.
Themes
Best Business Practices
A major theme of The Lemonade War is effective business practices. Both Evan and Jessie experiment with different strategies, learning from their mistakes and capitalizing on their successes. Mrs. Treski, a public relations consultant, has given each of the children a copy of her pamphlet, Ten Bright Ideas to Light Up Your Sales. While Jessie reads and quotes directly from the pamphlet, Evan remembers different tips from it. Both children try out the ideas in their lemonade stand ventures.
While each child experiences some failures selling lemonade, they make these into positive learning experiences. In the poster at the end of the novel, they demonstrate their knowledge by citing key business tips like: “#1, Location: It all starts with where you put your lemonade stand” (174). Though Jessie had successfully identified good locations in the past based on foot traffic, she is at one point undersold by Evan; similarly, though Evan identifies that the downtown area is one of the best locations to make the most money, he is quickly shut down for not having a permit. Thus, each of the Treski children comes away with a clear understanding that location is a very important part of business.
Evan and Jessie must go through a process of growth to become better businesspeople. Evan, who struggles with mathematics, quickly realizes that he will have to get better at solving word problems if he wants to turn a profit. On the other hand, Jessie, who is nervous about social interactions, is most successful on the day she is willing to franchise out her business to other girls in the fourth grade.
By the end of the novel, the children produce an “award-winning poster includ[ing] ten tips for running a successful lemonade stand, a profit-and-loss statement, business definitions, and a chart that tracked franchise profits” (176). This demonstrates both their individual personal growth as well as their collective understanding of best business practices.
Resolving Emotional Conflict
A critical aspect of The Lemonade War is the process that both Evan and Jessie go through to learn to resolve emotional conflicts. Both children struggle early on with talking to one another when they are having a hard time. Evan, despite his social adeptness, starts the novel by avoiding his sister. Meanwhile, Jessie, who struggles to understand other people, tries to understand her brother’s feelings without asking. As the lemonade war begins to escalate, each child becomes more and more distressed about the conflict, but it isn’t until they have learned to discuss their feelings that they’re able to reach a resolution.
Jessie goes through the largest transformation in terms of socioemotional growth. She spends a significant amount of time trying to better understand people, returning to advice that Evan had given her about body language: “People tell you things […] with their hands and their faces and the way they stand. It’s not just what they say” (50).
Jessie is able to mature emotionally when she finally gains some confidence in her relationships. This happens after Megan introduces a positive socioemotional strategy from school, where children write comment cards to one another with positive messages. Megan explains that when she feels sad, she reads back through her comment cards. After this conversation, Jessie feels better about herself and is prepared to make strides forward in approaching emotional conflict with others, including Evan. Toward the end of the novel, Jessie expresses this to Mrs. Treski, explaining that the siblings will work out their conflict amongst themselves. The resolution of the novel represents the culmination of the extensive growth that Evan and Jessie undergo as they communicate their feelings more clearly and honestly.
Balance Between Work and Play
As young children embarking on business ventures, Evan and Jessie confront their internal resistance, as well as their peer’s negative feelings, about having to work hard. The two Treski children convince their friends help with the lemonade stands by referring it to the work as a game. Evan and Jessie also each confront how tired the work makes them; for example, Jessie describes one day with Megan as “the hardest work of her life” (101). In this way, the novel models ways that young people can deal with the added strain of managing a business venture or project. Both Jessie and Evan negotiate with peers and take breaks from working for at least one of the five days that the war persists.
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By Jacqueline Davies
