14-year-old Verna LaVaughn, who goes by LaVaughn, is the narrator of Make Lemonade. LaVaughn lives with her single mother in an inner city apartment building, and she hopes to excel in school and attend college as a way to escape the poverty and lack of opportunities in her community. While LaVaughn clearly comes from a disadvantaged background, Wolff purposefully leaves her ethnicity ambiguous.

In order to save money for college, LaVaughn answers a babysitting ad, and she ends up babysitting for a 17-year-old girl who has had an even more difficult life than LaVaughn. Through her connection with this slightly-older teenager and her two children, LaVaughn comes to understand more about herself and her own goals in life. At the same time, LaVaughn’s relationship with her mother also affects her outlook on life, and these two influences often conflict with each other in the novel.

From the beginning of Make Lemonade, LaVaughn’s desire to attend college drives her thought process and decision-making. Early in the novel, LaVaughn describes a movie she saw in school in fifth grade, which suggested that after going to college, “you get a good job and you live in a nice place/with no gangs writing all over the walls” (9).