檸檬的滋味

by Virginia Euwer Wolff

　　這是一本用無韻詩寫的青少年成長小說，以十四歲的少女拉芳的視角，描述她與十七歲未婚單親媽媽喬莉的故事。為了存唸大學的學費，拉芳替喬莉看孩子，兩人進而發展出患難相扶持的友誼，在拉芳的不斷鼓勵下，喬莉慢慢從混亂、自閉的生活中走出來。

　　作者以生動活潑的文字和節奏，描繪低下階層社區的生活氛圍，小市民不平凡的生命力，令人動容；從拉芳和喬莉的故事，我們看見：人生需要一些堅持，才能活得有自尊，活得精采。

286 pages

Published June 1, 2002

About the author

On August 25th, Virginia Euwer Wolff was born in Portland, Oregon. Her family lived on an apple and pear orchard near Mount Hood. Her father died when she was five years old and she admits her childhood was pretty messed up, but she held things together with her violin. She graduated from Smith College. She raised a son and daughter before going back to teaching high school English.
She was almost fifty years old when she started writing children books. Virginia thought she might have one or two good books in her before the end but that was proven wrong. Today, she is no longer teaching, but writes full-time.

When Wolff was asked why she writes for kids and not grown-ups, She responded, "Because I don't think I have a handle on how to write for grown-ups. The grown-up publishing world is so fraught with one-upsmanship, scorn and snobbery. I did write an adult novel. Thank goodness it went out of print. I think we kids' authors still start out with hope every morning. We honor our audience."

Ms. Wolff has received many awards for her works, which include the Golden Kite Award for Fiction for her book Make Lemonade, the ALA Notable Book for Children for The Mozart Season and many, many others.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/virgin...