The Lemonade Club

The Lemonade Club by Patricia Polacco

Fiction

Based on a true story, The Lemonade Club is about a girl named Traci, her best friend Marilyn, and their fifth grade teacher Miss Wichelman. Traci and Marilyn love Miss Wichelman and her fifth grade class. She always makes them feel like they can do and be anything they put their mind to. Every day before class is over, she reminds them all that "if life hands you a lemon or two today- and you all know how sour lemons are- just add water and sugar what do you have? Lemonade!" One day Marilyn begins to feel sick and tired all the time and stops coming to school, which makes Traci and the rest of the class very worried. Miss Wichelman tells the class that Marilyn has leukemia, but that she is undergoing chemotherapy which will make her sick for a while but will kill all the cancer cells in her body and eventually make her better. When Marilyn comes back to class everyone is wearing funny hats, and when they take them off she sees that they have shaved their heads so that they can all be bald together- even Miss Wichelman! Traci, Marilyn, and Miss Wichelman meet every week after school, and they began to call themselves "The Lemonade Club." Eventually everyone's hair begins to grow back... except for Miss Wichelman's. "The Lemonade Club" has an emergency meeting, and Miss Wichelman tells Traci and Marilyn that she has cancer, too. Miss Wichelman is going to beat the cancer just like Marilyn did, and has applied to medical school so that she can one day help children like Marilyn fight cancer, too. Five years later, Miss Wichelman gets married- and the members of "The Lemonade Club" are in her wedding!

I would use this book to tackle the tough topic of cancer and other terminal illnesses. It would be a great book to use if one of your students has cancer. It gives a very real portrayal and doesn't hide anything (Marilyn loses her hair, she's very tired, etc.) but it presents it in a way that is not scary I also think that it would be great to use when talking about attitudes. Miss Wichelman tells her students every day- before and after they learn that Marilyn has leukemia- to "make lemonade," or, make the best out of a bad situation. The way that they treat Marilyn and get her through the chemotherapy, as well as the way that Marilyn herself handles having cancer, are very good examples of how the students "make lemonade" when life has handed them sour lemons.