From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 11:32:08 -0500

We're so fortunate to receive some information from author Virginia Euwer Wolff herself regarding some of the questions about Make Lemonade and True Believer arising during the past few days.

We're thinking of this as an informal question/answer time as well as a discussion time. I picture it, as if we're all in the virtual CCBC-Net "auditorium" where we're gathered to talk after we each read Make Lemonade and/or True Believer. The author has stepped in unexpectedly, and she's agreed to respond to a few questions from the floor.

1) When you were writing -Make Lemonade- did you know/conceive/feel that there was another book/a sequel to it?

Well, no. I was just so glad to finish Make Lemonade, which I hadn't believed I could finish. Getting a final draft done was such a victory. I didn't think beyond that for quite some time. I even stopped writing for several months. The sequel happened because I'd ended up thinking so much about LaVaughn and Jolly. Even while I was writing another book during the next 4 years, I kept wondering how those young women were doing. Each of them had joined me in some kind of imaginary life, and because I was on speaking terms with them, I could just ask, in my own home in the middle of the afternoon, "Hey, LaVaughn, how's it going?" Enough repetitions of that, and hints of a second volume began to take shape. The confidence to begin it came haltingly, though.

2) Will there be more?

Yes. I knew that if I could complete book 2, I could try book 3. Another big question for these young women has been gnawing at me for years; the third and last book will confront that question.

3) Did you imagine that these titles would be crossovers for adults?

I really don't have any idea. I'm not any good at imagining who will like what book. I would hope some adults would like these. I think some do.

4) Please comment on choices of titles for each book.

Both titles were my first choices. I think luck had a lot to do with it; that is, each of them landed in my head when I was alert enough to note its presence. In the case of the 2 words "Make Lemonade" and their sloganizing associations, I think of it rather in the same family as "Get a life." Short words, easy to jeer dismissively out the side of the mouth, and so terribly, terribly hard to act on. A little bit like "Get over it." What if the "it" is a set of obstacles of the kind that Jolly has faced in her life? So my intent in using "Make Lemonade" was precisely to focus on the difference between the glibness of saying it and the hard, hard work of doing it.

Me: Oh, my, and the hard, hard work of writing Make Lemonade doesn't show at all. What an accomplishment ! Thanks for responding, Virginia Euwer Wolff! We might have other questions or comments for you sometime this month... Cheers, Ginny Kruse

Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu Cooperative Children's Book Center www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Fri 06 Jul 2001 11:32:08 AM CDT