LS #64, Karen's Lemonade Stand

The illustrations in this book are super cute. I wanted to scan them all, but you know. Lazy.

Here's the front cover. Karen is sitting around looking bored with a much curlier side ponytail than usual.  This is another of my ex-library copies, but judging by the date stamps on the back, it was only checked out twice.

This book starts out in the middle of a heat wave. Karen is tired of the heat, and Kristy is worried that the weather will force her to cancel a Krushers practice. Karen decides that she's going to sell lemonade. She makes a pitcher of lemonade. She makes it one glass at a time because she isn't sure how much a quart or a gallon is. Then she takes her pitcher outside and sets up shop. There aren't many people outside. She sells lemonade to Nannie, Sam, Charlie, Hannie, and Linny. She also sells lemonade to some people in a car who stop. Lucky Karen. In all the times I set up a lemonade (or more often, Kool-Aid) stand in my childhood, never once did a car full of people stop and buy five cups. This is part of the reason that I will stop and buy lemonade whenever I see a kid with a stand, even though I hate lemonade. Anyway after three hours of selling lemonade, Karen has a buck fifty to show for it, and she's pretty disappointed, naturally.

It's time for Krushers practice. Here's a picture of Karen batting. Everything about this seems pretty awkward if it's the follow-through on her swing. I guess Kristy has some more coaching to do. Karen gets to first base on an error, but then Hannie strikes out to end the inning. Karen hunts her down after practice and screams at her that she should have tried harder, even though Karen herself dropped two balls in the outfield due to lack of paying attention. Karen is also mean to Andrew when he asks for help tying his shoe. Kristy takes Karen aside to ask her why she's being so mean and Karen explains that she is just frustrated due to slow lemonade sales. Kristy says that Karen can't just wait for customers to come to her, she'll have to figure out where customers will be. Karen apologizes to Hannie and Andrew for her outbursts, explaining that one must be prepared for stuff like that to come out of left field when one is on a baseball diamond. (No she doesn't really use that explanation but she totally should have.)

Karen realizes that the place she's been with the most potential customers is Krushers practice. People are staying in their air-conditioned houses because of the heat, except when they have to go out for things like work or parctices. She decides that she will sell lemonade before the next practice. She lets an adult help her this time so that she doesn't have to make it a glass at a time.

Karen's pre-practice sales are a rousing success. Because apparently her pitcher of lemonade holds a LOT. At the next practice, she even runs over during the practice game to serve customers. By the next practice, Kristy is getting annoyed with Karen's continual running over to sell lemonade, and talks to her about it. Karen decides to quit the softball team and sell lemonade full time. At the next practice, Bobby also sets up a stand, selling chocolate chip cookies, and he also quits the team. Then Hannie quits. Then Nancy.

There's a chapter where Karen goes over to Melody Korman's house to swim in their pool because of the heat wave. This is notable only because of this cute picture of Karen jumping into the water. Then the air conditioner at the Big House breaks, and they spend three days with no a/c while waiting for it to be fixed. It sounds pretty miserable.

Kristy announces that the team will be playing a World Series against the Bashers. Yet again, Kristy does not seem particularly concerned about the definition of the word Series, as it will only be one game. But by now, six kids have quit the team to be full time salespersons. Kristy is kind of sadface about this, because it's going to make it hard to play the game, but this is really what you should expect when you try to start a softball team that is not part of any league and does not charge any fees. If it was a thing the parents were paying for, they'd probably make their kids keep going to practice. If it was part of a standard league, the kids would have more to do than just practice all the time and occasionally play one other team. As it is, they're just going to get bored. Plus, Kristy always says the team is for kids who are too young or not good enough for Little League. Well, if you suck at baseball, it follows that you might not really enjoy playing after a while, because striking out every time isn't fun. So anyway everyone quitting to sell each other random crap is more likely than the team continuing to run like a well oiled machine.

Jackie Rodowsky's dad suggests the kids have a sales fair on a Saturday when they can all set up their tables and sell each other crap. The kids are excited, and spend a lot of time planning. Karen helps Hannie make friendship bracelets to sell on a day when Kristy is babysitting Hannie. Kristy pretty much ignores them and plays with Sari the whole time. Like, she makes Karen and Hannie some lunch, but doesn't sit with them while they eat. It seems a lot more petty than Regular Series Kristy would probably like us to believe.

The sale ends up  having to be postponed because of a big storm. Karen goes with Charlie and Sam to the grocery store to stock up on bread and milk, and there's this adorable picture of Andrew being afraid of the storm, and the power goes out and Karen and Hannie (who spends the night at Karen's house the night of the storm) pretend to be pioneer girls. Which is totally what I would have forced my sister to do when we were kids. The next morning, the kids go walk around to look at the storm damage, and discover that the bleachers at the field where they play softball have been demolished. They decide to donate all of the money from their sales day to rebuild the bleachers. The money raised is not enough, but it is a start, and the sale is successful and fun. The kids decide they miss softball and give up their lemonade and other stands and rejoin the Krushers, then they play the Stoneybrook Non League Softball Championship Game against the Bashers and win, and they are all very happy.