Lemonade Mouth [Hardcover]

Mark Peter Hughes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 13, 2007

Poets. Geniuses. Revolutionaries.

The members of the legendary band Lemonade Mouth have been called all of these things. But until now, nobody's known the inside story of how this powerhouse band came to be. How five outcasts in Opoquonsett High School's freshman class found each other, found the music, and went on to change both rock and roll and high school as we know it. Wen, Stella, Charlie, Olivia, and Mo take us back to that fateful detention where a dentist's jingle, a teacher's coughing fit, and a beat-up ukelele gave birth to Rhode Island's most influential band. Told in each of their five voices and compiled by Opoquonsett's "scene queen," freshman Naomi Fishmeier, this anthology is their definitive history.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A Letter from Author Mark Peter Hughes
Not long after my second novel, Lemonade Mouth, was published in 2007, I got a strange and unexpected phone call at home from a Hollywood producer named Debra Martin Chase. Debra is the producer who made the movies The Princess Diaries, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and The Cheetah Girls, among many others. As I stood there with the phone to my ear and my jaw hanging open, she told me that she’d read and loved Lemonade Mouth, and that even though she didn’t yet have a deal in place, she was determined to make a movie out of my book.

I couldn’t have been more astonished if it had started raining lemons.

I wrote Lemonade Mouth, the story of five high-school freshman outsiders who meet in detention, form an unlikely band, and start a revolution destined to change the world, because I’ve played in bands and know something about what it’s like. Each member of the band called Lemonade Mouth--Stella, Olivia, Mo (Mohini), Charlie, and Wen--are different parts of me. Stella is a shout-through-a-megaphone rule-breaker who wants to make a positive difference but doesn’t always get it right. That’s me. Olivia is shy and quiet and sometimes has a hard time talking about the important things. That’s me too, sometimes. What Mohini and I share is that we both straddle two different cultures. Mo’s family moved to the U.S. from India, while I was born in England, grew up here in America, and have often felt the crosscurrent like a hot dog floating in a cup of tea.

In the summer of 2010, the Disney Channel started filming its adaptation of my novel (turned out, Debra’s promise of “Determinate”-tion was more than just words), and my family and I were lucky enough to get to visit the set. The filmmakers and cast were warm and welcoming, and I have wonderful memories of those days.

What a surreal experience it was to stand among three hundred extras and watch talented actors perform a concert as characters I had created in my kitchen. At one point, when Hayley Kiyoko (who plays Stella) started calling out to the crowd about how everyone should be nice to each other--a speech that uses my own words and heartfelt convictions--I had a lump in my throat the size of Rhode Island. My wife actually burst into tears. Out of anyone on this planet, she knew best what this meant to me--to all of us.

I’m actually in the movie. I’m an extra in the Halloween Bash scene. Pretty much whenever you see the principal standing in the audience, look over his shoulder and you might notice a guy dressed like a bee. That’s me. It’s just a little thing, but it sure does make me happy.

To all the Lemonheads out there: Be heard! Be strong! Be proud! And keep doing what you love, as I have. You never know what Destiny has in store for you.

--Mark Peter Hughes

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6 Up–Five freshmen meet in detention one afternoon and begin to sing along with a radio jingle. Thus begins the story of Lemonade Mouth as told by the bandmates and friends in first-person diary/journal entries. No one likes to be known as the fat kid, the new kid, the nerd, or the freak, but these teens are empowered by their newly formed friendships and empower others as well. Rival band Mudslide Crush is no match for the funky style of Mo on bass, Charlie on the congas and timbales, Stella on ukelele, Wen on trumpet, and Olivia's vocals. School, family, and romance are all pressures building in these teens' lives, and forming the band helps them to cope with the world. They meet in the school basement, where other geek clubs have also been relegated, and their mascot is the Mel's Frozen Lemonade machine in the hallway. One day, it is removed, and Stella and her friends protest when they find out that a soda company has signed an exclusive deal with the administration to sell only their company's products in exchange for a new sports scoreboard. When Lemonade Mouth plays the school Halloween bash, they bring up the lemonade-machine issue, causing a student riot and ending with the musicians back in detention. When they are told that they cannot play in the talent show as punishment, other students call for their reinstatement. Lemonade Mouth tells a tale of underdogs getting a break in the world.–Corinda J. Humphrey, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (March 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385733925
• ISBN-13: 978-0385733922
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #358,051 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Peter Hughes's novel Lemonade Mouth is now a Disney Channel Original Movie musical. About a high-school band that starts a revolution, the book has won many awards and is a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. Mark's award-winning first novel, I am the Wallpaper (which includes Wen Gifford of Lemonade Mouth), has been translated into German and Thai. His newest novel, A Crack in the Sky, is the first in a sci-fi fantasy adventure series. The second Lemonade Mouth book, Lemonade Mouth Puckers Up, will be released in 2012, and a sequel to A Crack in the Sky is also on the way.

Mark was born in Liverpool, England, and was raised in Rhode Island. Having once been kicked out of his eighth-grade music class for throwing a spitball, he later became both a writer and a musician in an alternative rock band. He now lives in Massachusetts with his wife and three kids.

You can learn more by checking out his websites, www.markpeterhughes.com and www.LemonadeMouth.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: LEMONADE MOUTH, April 6, 2007

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lemonade Mouth (Hardcover)

"Lonely day
After the storm has come and gone
There will never be another tomorrow like today.
In my own way
I wait for the light of dawn
I look for a sign of things to come and change to stay."
--Lemonade Mouth, "Back Among the Walls," from their CD, Live at the Bash.

LEMONADE MOUTH is the story of five socially-struggling high school freshman who come together through a combination of chance and the wisdom of a sorely misused music teacher to form the legendary band, Lemonade Mouth. It all begins on the afternoon when the five students end up in Freshman Detention which is scheduled in the dungeon-like basement classroom of the aforementioned music teacher, Mrs. Reznik.

There is Stella who has begun her freshman year at Opoquonsett High in Rhode Island as the new kid in town. A frustrated student in a family of geniuses and step-geniuses, her mom's new research job has taken Stella unwillingly across the country. She has landed herself in detention for an act of rebellion in response to having previously been sent home for wearing a tee-shirt whose artwork had never been at issue in her old school back in Arizona. But the vice principal has told her, " 'Opoquonsett High doesn't have a dress code, exactly. It's just that we have an unwritten line and that shirt crosses it.' " (As my friend Skeezie Tookis would say, "What kind of stinkin' rule is that?")

There is Wen who is struggling with his feelings regarding his father's buxom twenty-something girlfriend, Sydney. In regard to the humiliating incident in social studies that has landed him in Mrs. Reznik's room, receiving detention as a result of that debacle is the absolute least of Wen's problems.

Mohini must be considered the least likely of the quintet to be in any kind of trouble. The overachieving daughter of immigrants, she has recently exchanged "a lifetime of social obscurity," along with her consistent obedience to her father's strict rules and to her own long-range school and career Plan, for the thrill of being seen around school with an older student who is both a popular soccer star and part of the band Mudslide Crush. It was he who persuaded Mo to skip her Independent Study class; they were subsequently seen and reported.

Meanwhile, Charlie is struggling with his obsession over how fate chose him to be born fine while his identical twin Aaron was stillborn as the result of being strangled by the umbilical cord. Charlie perceives Aaron as a harsh voice in his head who constantly points out what a failure Charlie is. In this instance, he has ended up in Mrs. Reznik's room through his failure to properly aim the spitball that was meant to retaliate for the one with which a renowned school bully had just nailed him in the face.

Finally, Olivia has spent most of her life living with her grandmother after her mother abandoned the family and her struggling father was convicted of murder in a failed store robbery. She finds herself in detention with Stella, Wen, Mo, and Charlie for skipping American lit, where she was facing another in the series of chapter quizzes that "strip away the fun of a good book." Instead of going to class, she gets caught hiding out reading the rest of the book.

Together, as a result of an incident in detention and the subsequent encouragement of Mrs. Reznik, the five pool their hidden talents -- musical and otherwise -- to become the pride of the unsung average and oft-picked on kids at their high school and far beyond it. And, as might be said, the rest is musical history.

"HOLD IT HIGH! RAISE IT UP!"

My heart is singing every time my mind pulls me back to what I just experienced. Count me in as a the #1 charter member of the Lemonade Mouth Fan Club.

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not for pre-teens, June 16, 2011

By 

JL - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lemonade Mouth (Hardcover)

I haven't read this entire book but bought it for my 12 year old son for his birthday as his first kindle book. He and my 17 year old daughter had seen the Disney movie and loved it. While reading the first chapter, he came in to me and said that this book was not appropriate for him. After reading graphic details of one of the boys interest in his father's 26 year old girlfriend and her body and describing the nude pictures he had found of her, my son knew this was probably not the kind of book he should be reading. The boy in the book then went on to detail what happened in his pants as he obviously was quite stimulated by these pictures. Even my 17 year old said she couldn't believe Disney would pick this book to make a movie out of, knowing that young kids would also read the book. The book may be great for older kids, maybe 15 or so. But I really don't think what my son read was appropriate for 12 year olds. I did not see any other review that describes these kinds of things, so hopefully this will help someone else not waste their money.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars poets. geniuses. revolutionaries. GREAT BOOK!, March 19, 2007

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Lemonade Mouth (Hardcover)

This energetic book begins as a playful story, but develops into something completely different. Five freshman at Opequonsett High School all have certain unconventional aspects of their lives that pull us in. These five characters create a strong but unlikely bond. As their band Lemonade Mouth blossoms so do they. Wen, Stella, Mohini, Charlie, and Olivia begin a band that changes their school and alomost everyone in it. What begins as fun during detention turns into a serious commitment that will have everyone talking. Although some issues may seem trivial [like an organic frozen lemonade machine, a cat lover's sadness, or probably the first ukele ever used in a rock band], this novel addresses issues that some people are still afraid to face. Mark Peter Hughes once again amazes us all with his talents as a writer: his uncanny knack for worming his way into many teens' minds and ability of turning our daily occurrences into something profound. This is a book is a must-read and will leave everyone cheering for an encore.
-elena