Nick Swansen pretty much knows what it means to be Special Ed.: You can't drive, even if you're sixteen and your parents have two cars; the regular kids in school don't talk to you much; and even if you can memorize every fact about amphibians, it's hard to make sense of all the other stuff swirling in your mind. What he doesn't know is whether being Special Ed. means you shouldn't go to the prom. But since no rule says you can't, Nick decides to ask Shana.
But the prom doesn't turn out at all the way Nick expects it to, and everything bad seems to get all mixed up together: the prom,...

An award-winning novel about growing up and making choices

Viginia Euwer Wolff's groundbreaking novel, written in free verse, tells the story of fourteen-year-old LaVaughn, who is determined to go to college--she just needs the money to get there. When she answers a babysitting ad, LaVaughn meets Jolly, a seventeen-year-old single mother with two kids by different fathers. As she helps Jolly make lemonade out of the lemons her life has given her, LaVaughn learns some lessons outside the classroom.

LaVaughn has made it through the projects, she's gottenover heartbreak, she's grown up, and now she might finally have her ticket to college. She believes that she's keeping alert to all possibilities. But discoveries she makes during her senior year in high school disturb everything in her small universe. And in an effort to bring together people who should love each other, she jeopardizes the one prize she has sought her whole life long.

When do you know whether you're doing the right thing? What happens when you can't find a way to make lemonade out of lemons?