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.
Chapters 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Joint Venture”
In Chapter 3, Evan and Scott embark on a joint venture to sell lemonade together. Scott’s attitude frustrates Evan, and he wishes that one of his other friends had been home instead. As they bring the cooler down the street, Evan and Scott argue briefly about where to locate their lemonade stand, with Evan pushing for the corner since he learned last summer from Jessie that it was the best location for foot traffic. While they wait for customers, both boys drink some of the lemonade, though Scott drinks more than Evan.
Over the course of the day, Scott drinks more and more lemonade, and they manage to sell 14 cups to customers. Evan tries to calculate how much money they’ve earned but can’t figure out how to do the math correctly. He feels they’ve “made a pretty good amount” (33). They consider how much more they could have made if they had wasted less lemonade. Scott tells Evan to make more lemonade, and even though Evan feels frustrated by Scott’s selfishness, he goes to the house and makes grape juice, as it’s all he has.
When Evan returns with the grape juice, Scott has finished the lemonade. They argue again about money, then realize that no one has come to their stand. Around the corner, they find Jessie and Megan Moriarty, a girl from Evan’s class, with a beautiful lemonade stand. Jessie waves some of her earnings at Evan, and he angrily walks away.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Partnership”
Jessie is excited about her partnership with Megan Moriarty and is hopeful that Evan will be impressed by her lemonade stand. Instead of coming over to help, Evan walks away, leaving Jessie confused. She thinks back to moments when she and Evan worked together and mourns for their friendship.
Prior to Evan’s discovery of Jessie’s stand, Jessie had chosen Megan as her partner to please Evan, as she knows he thinks Megan is nice. She had searched for Megan’s number in the school directory, then decided to ride her bike by Megan’s house. Jessie rode back and forth in front of the house until Megan hollered out the window at her. After some discussion, the two girls agreed to make a lemonade stand together. Jessie explained using diagrams that they could make at least $12 in one day. Megan is impressed and says, “Wow […] You’re really good at math” (57).
The girls are successful and make money, as Jessie had predicted, but Jessie’s interaction with Evan has left her deflated. She doesn’t “feel like she’d won anything at all” (58).
Chapter 5 Summary: “Competition”
After washing the dinner dishes that night, Jessie asks Evan how much money he made. This enrages Evan, and he calls Jessie a showoff and a little kid. He tells her that Megan shouldn’t be friends with her. Jessie yells at Evan for running his stand with Scott, whom she calls “that jerk” (61). She’s on the verge of tears, an unusual occurrence, when she challenges Evan to earn more than her and Megan.
When Mrs. Treski shouts down the stairs, the siblings cease fighting for fear of causing their mother additional distress: “Ever since Dad had gone, they had vowed not to fight in front of Mom. It made her sad. Sadder, even, than when Dad left” (64). They reconcile by betting on their lemonade stands; the first to earn $100 wins, and the loser must give the winner their earnings.
Chapters 3-5 Analysis
Both of the Treski children are concerned with how their peers view them. Evan is worried that people will think his little sister is smarter or better than him, while Jessie is nervous about not being able to do well socially, especially based on her experiences in the second grade. As they begin navigating other relationships, like Evan with Scott and Jessie with Megan, both Treski children learn more about how to interact with the people around them. Yet both Evan and Jessie end their first day of lemonade selling feeling unsatisfied and unable to connect in the ways they want to, which is likely the cause of the tension between them.
The underlying conflict of The Lemonade War appears more in these chapters, as Davies inserts the fact that Mr. Treski has left the family, and that Mrs. Treski is sad. Evan and Jessie, mere children, take Mrs. Treski’s sadness into consideration and are careful of her feelings. As they struggle to navigate the growing tension between them, neither child talks about their father. Mrs. Treski is also noticeably absent from most of the interactions the two children have, since she is preoccupied with her work. In this way, Davies illustrates the way that a single mom might have to navigate life with two children, as well as the emotional impact on the children themselves.
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