The Lemonade War

“This was great news. Why didn’t Evan see that? They always had fun together at home. Now they could have fun in school, too.”

Jessie has great difficulty accessing other people’s perspectives, including her brother’s. When they get the news that the siblings will both be in the same fourth-grade class, Jessie is overjoyed, but can’t understand why Evan doesn’t feel the same way as. As a young person who struggles with making friends, Jessie feels like it will be more “fun” to have Evan in her class. Unbeknownst to her, Evan is conflicted by the news and feels that her academic success will overshadow him in the coming school year.

“‘It will not be fun,’ said Evan. ‘School. Isn’t. Fun.’”

Evan’s academic difficulties have led him to feel that school is not a positive space for him. Despite being a socially adept child, Evan’s insecurities are evident here and will go on to be a major driving force in the novel. Had Evan faced his insecurities about his academic failings early on, the lemonade war would not have happened.

“He was deserting her. He wasn’t going to stand by her at school.”

Jessie feels abandoned by Evan when he starts treating her differently around his friends. The lonelier Jessie feels, the angrier she is, and the more she wants to beat him in the lemonade war. This anger comes out of her deep fear that she will be unable to make friends or find kind treatment at school.

“Word problems! Evan hated word problems. And this one was impossible anyway.”

When Evan starts his lemonade business, he has enormous difficulty solving the mathematical problems that he needs to ensure a profit. His feeling that the problem is “impossible” is mostly caused by his previous negative experiences doing math problems. Later, when Evan lets go of this insecurity, he solves the problems.

“She wanted back the Evan who was her best friend. But Evan didn’t want her, because he thought she was a baby and she was going to embarrass him in Mrs. Overton’s class.”

Jessie projects her own feelings of inadequacy onto Evan, thinking that he doesn’t want her in his class because she would embarrass him with her naiveté. This assumption is the opposite of the real reason that Evan is apprehensive about being in the same class, but Jessie is unable to understand that possible motivation.

“For a second, Evan wasn’t sure if he meant the lemonade stand or Megan Moriarty. In a mixed-up way, he meant both.”

Evan is very upset about Jessie’s new friendship with Megan. He is unable to control his feelings of jealousy, but also has difficulty expressing his honest emotions to his sister. This leads Evan to feel “mixed-up” about what he feels and what he wants to share outwardly. Jessie has just taken his lemonade stand customers and his love interest, and he feels betrayed.

“Ever since Dad had gone, they had vowed not to fight in front of Mom.”

The Treski household divorce is an underlying theme in the novel. This is one of the first instances that the author mentions it. Evan and Jessie have committed “not to fight” in front of Mrs. Treski in an effort to keep her from being sadder than she already is. The children’s perception that they can help their mother by not fighting shows the feelings of responsibility that they have for their mother. Despite battling with complex emotions, they bottle their own feelings to spare their mother. This effort could be the source of their inability to express their feelings clearly with each other.

“That was the other thing that Jessie hated about girls. They were always giving looks. Looks that contained all kinds of strange and complicated messages.”

In her second-grade class, Jessie was victimized by a group of mean girls. Jessie had difficulty understanding the “looks” that the girls gave to one another. This prompts her to work hard on understanding the ways that people communicate through body language.

“[Mrs. DeFazio] had always reminded him to draw a picture when he couldn’t figure out how to start a math problem.”

As Evan begins to improve his mathematical skills, he calls upon a previous learning experience at school. Modeling using pictures is one common strategy for people of any age to access more difficult problems. Once Evan is able to draw his own model, he overcomes a hurdle that was a catalyst for the events of the novel, his academic insecurities.

“Evan stared at the five dollar bill in his hand. It was funny. Two days ago, he would have felt as rich as a king to have that money in his hands.”

Through their rapid success at selling lemonade, both Evan and Jessie find themselves in possession of more money than they had ever had before. Evan notes the irony in his shift in perspective as he feels frustrated about only getting five dollars from the police officer who shuts his stand down.

“It is never going to feel normal, not talking to Evan.”

As the children intensify their competition Jessie is distraught that she and her brother aren’t speaking. The children had been very close prior to the lemonade war, so their isolation from one another is difficult.

“Jessie suddenly wondered, If Megan knew about the war, whose side would she be on?”

Jessie knows that she has been withholding some of the truth from Megan about what the competition is about. This deceit causes Jessie some inner turmoil. Just as Evan was jealous of Jessie’s relationship with Megan, Jessie is jealous of Megan’s attraction to Evan. She wonders who Megan would prioritize were she to learn the truth.

“But after Dad left, there just weren’t any more stories to tell.”

In one of the most honest descriptions the Treski household following the divorce, Evan reflects on the change in his relationship with Jessie. Instead of having “stories to tell” her, the two children are left feeling mostly lonely and disconnected from one another. Evan isn’t sure how to resolve this tension and seems sad that things have changed.

“That’s what she’d meant to say. That’s what she’d wanted to say.”

Jessie frequently struggles to express herself clearly, saying something that comes out rude or antagonistic instead of friendly. This most often happens with Evan, so that he doesn’t understand that she might be feeling sorry or loving. Later, Jessie goes over the things she’s said and tries to see where she has gone wrong.

“You’re never going to stop being mad at each other until you both understand what the other person is feeling.”

Mrs. Treski gives this critical piece of advice to Jessie after a teary conversation. This advice illustrates one of the central themes of the novel. Eventually, once Jessie and Evan can understand what the other is feeling, they are able to resolve their conflict.

“He’d give her the money back tomorrow or maybe the day after that, but not tonight.”

Evan convinces himself that it is okay to steal the money from Jessie’s lockbox to punish for sabotaging his lemonade business. He wants her to feel that she has lost the competition and feel sorry for what she has done. Unfortunately, this decision is what leads to the loss of the money altogether.

“For the past half-hour, Jessie had been imagining walking in the door and facing Evan. And she’d been feeling sicker and sicker with every mile that brought her closer to home.”

Jessie, like Evan, feels guilt about her behavior toward her sibling. After putting bugs in Evan’s vat of lemonade, Jessie had gone to the beach with Megan, but has difficulty enjoying the day. As she gets closer to home, she begins feeling “sicker and sicker” with the knowledge that she will have to face her brother.

“He didn’t think about Scott Spencer until he went into Jack’s bedroom to change back into his clothes.”

Evan is a good-natured child and doesn’t suspect that anything bad would happen between him and his friends, which is why he doesn’t assume that Scott would have done anything bad when he left early from the pool. The envelope of money goes missing and Evan is left to conclude that it was Scott who had taken it.

“That was a joke Jessie would have loved, he thought. Before the war. Now it was all just money and numbers and bad feelings. There was no room for laughing.”

Evan reflects on his relationship with Jessie “before the war” and how much fun and laughter they had shared. He feels regret about how the mood between them has shifted so significantly. Soon after this reflection, Evan is finally able to apologize to his sister and express his true feelings to repair their relationship.

“Never in her life had she had more than one hundred dollars in her hand. Never in her life had she had a friend who trusted her like Megan had.”

While Jessie is desperate to win the war to prove herself to Evan, her newfound friendship with Megan motivates her more. The trust that Megan puts in Jessie makes her feel profoundly guilty for losing the money. Jessie works hard to make amends and to earn back the amount that Megan had donated to her.

“Part of him just wanted to lie on the bed and take it. Take it all. For being the one who started the whole thing by saying, ‘I hate you.’”

Evan feels ashamed about his behavior toward Jessie and recognizes his part in starting the war. He allows Jessie to hit him repeatedly so that she can express her frustration. Evan’s lack of response reveals his own emotional growth and process of learning.

“‘Because I’ll embarrass you,’ she said solemnly. ‘Because I’ll embarrass myself,’ said Evan.”

Evan and Jessie finally express their fears about the coming school year. Jessie doesn’t want to embarrass her cool older brother, while Evan doesn’t want to embarrass himself by seeming stupider than his younger sister. After admitting their fears to one another, the siblings are friends once more.

“For the first time in four days, she didn’t care about who had more and who had less.”

Jessie has expended most of her energy on the mathematical side of the lemonade war, since she’s confident in her math skills. Finally, at the conclusion of the novel, she lets go of this focus and embraces her desire to be more connected with her brother.