Lemonade Mouth

Summary:
A disperate group of high school students thrown together in detention form a band to play at a school telent show and end up competing with a wildly popular local rock band.

Book Talk:
It all began at a detention in the music room where sounds just sort of took over and unified into a beat and a really solid sound. But it went deeper than that…the music they created helped four high school outcasts who never had anything in common join together to form a band and overturn the social order at their school. Told in five distinct voices, the wonderfully amusing Lemonade Mouth tells the story of the band that will live on as a revolutionary legend at Rhode Island’s Opequonsett High School.

Awards & Reviews:
Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of the Year with Special Recognition for Outstanding Merit, 2007
Booksense Top Ten Pick, 2007
Boston Authors Club Young Reader Award (Finalist), 2008

Booklist¸ February 15, 2007, p. 71
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, June 2007
Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2007
Publishers Weekly, March 12, 2007 p. 59
School Library Journal, May 2007,  p.134
VOYA: Voice of Youth Advocates, February 2

Discussion Questions and Ideas:

1. What did you like or dislike about the way this book is written? (Five distinct voices)
2. If you didn’t read the chapter headings, would you know it was a different “voice” talking? Why or why not?
3. Do you think it is a believable story? Why or why not?
4. Who is your favorite character? What is it about them that you like or admire?
5. Would you have liked to hang out with the students in this band?
6. If you became a member of Lemonade Mouth, do you think you would have stuck it out with them until the end?
7. How do you feel about them blowing the big concert?
8. Do you think the fate of Lemonade Mouth would have been different if fame had come more slowly?
9. How do you think you would have handled the pressure of standing out like that?
10. Do you feel at all inspired after reading Lemonade Mouth?
11. Why do you think Jersey’s father kept the gun?
12. “I knew about cold empty, and mad, and now I knew how everything seemed like it got too big and bigger and I made nothing huge until I pulled the trigger.” (p.273) What was your reaction to Jersey’s epiphany? Given that you were in his head with him, had you come to this same conclusion?

Related Websites:
Author’s website: http://www.markpeterhughes.com

Read-a-Likes:
Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway, 2008
Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going 2003
The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian, 2001 (2002 RITBA Nominee)
Guitar Girl by Sarra Manning, 2003
My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger, 2008
Never Mind!: A Twin Novel by Avi and Rachel Vail , 2004
Rock Star Superstar by Black Nelson, 2004
Sister Slam and the Poetic Motomouth Roadtrip by Linda Oatman High, 2004
Thunderbowl by Lesley Choyce, 2004
Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher, 2001 (2002 RITBA Nominee)

Other Books by the Author:
I Am the Wallpaper, 2005
The Wild Orange Yonder, Forthcoming

About the Author:
Mark Peter Hughes was born in Liverpool, England and spent most of his youth in Barrington, Rhode Island, and now lives in Massachusettes with his wife and three children. He was inspired to write Lemonade Mouth because of his own experience singing and playing guitar in bands when he was younger. (For an interview with the author and more information regarding him, refer to his website.)