The Lemonade War

The Lemonade War is the story of two siblings who go to battle on the summer streets to see who can sell the most lemonade. The book includes themes of rivalry, jealously, and brother/sister relationships. This book is the beginning of the Lemonade War series that includes 5 books.

This book falls under contemporary realistic fiction. The characters and setting could occur in the real world today and their conflicts and dialogue are realistic. The two main characters Evan and Jessie are multidimensional and they go through changes throughout the book that help them grow. The book contains few illustrations that are mainly graphs or tables drawn in pen and ink.

Activities:

Have students create a Once/Now paper. The students can show how the two main characters changed from the beginning to the end of the book. This can be in paragraph form or simply in bullet points. This activity can be focused on showing how the characters worked toward expressing their feelings in a healthy way toward one another in order to solve conflicts. Show students that respecting one another is the best way to solve problems are bring people together. When Evan and Jessie were fighting they lost sight of what was important but after growing throughout the story they saw how important mutual respect can be.

The end of the story leaves readers wanting more. We are left wondering who stole the money from Evan and we wonder how the school year will be once the two start classes together. Have students predict what they think will happen in the next book of the series The Lemonade Crime.

Reader Response Questions:

What do you think is the real reason Evan is so mad at Jessie?
Have you ever felt competitive with someone before? What did you do?
Do you think Jessie was right for dumping the bugs into Evan's lemonade?
Why didn't Evan confront Scott Spencer about taking the money?
How did the two siblings finally work out their

I personally loved reading this book and found a lot of personal connections with the characters and conflicts. This book is the first of five books in the series written by Jacqueline Davies.

The four other books are listed here:

The Lemonade Crime

The Bell Bandit

The Candy Smash

The Magic Trap

Davies, J. (2007). The lemonade war. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company