Sophie Washington Lemonade Day

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Tonya Duncan Ellis will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. 

Click on "read more" below to read an excerpt or sign up for the GIVEAWAY.  

When Life Gives You Lemons…Make Lemonade
Sixth-grader Sophie Washington and friends learn lessons about entrepreneurship and team work when they sign up for a city-wide, Lemonade Day event. Sophie wants to buy her mother something special for her birthday, but she’s short on cash...

Her bestie, Chloe, comes up with the perfect solution. Build their own lemonade stand to raise money at Lemonade Day! The girls add friends Carly and Nathan, and Sophie’s little brother, Cole, to their team, and decide to donate some of their earnings to a local animal shelter to help save stray animals. Things are going great, until the family dog destroys their supplies. They get worse when Sophie tries to impress another boy in their class and upsets Nathan. Can they save their business in time for the event?

My Review...

This lady writes phenomenal children’s books. They are as diverse as can be, but they are also “normal” or maybe I should say, they cover many situations every kid and many parents live through. Their school is a school where kids have all kinds of friends as well as a few with the prejudices we all live with today. Ellis doesn’t skirt around any of these points. She also doesn’t hesitate to address the everyday problems our kids have...siblings arguing, someone cheating at school, bullying, friends snubbing friends. I can’t name them all here. Each one is a good story, a good lesson and yet fun to read. None of these stories ever leave the reader with a hurtful feeling. It just leaves us (no matter the age) feeling better.

In this book about Lemonade Day, we find Sophie and her friends getting a little older. They all have the same woes of a kid, they all have the same joys of a kid. But somehow, I can feel the author beginning to grow and mature her characters a little. Somehow Sophie and all of her diverse wonderful friends could  teach a lot of things kids must handle even as they begin to grow up. Tonya Duncan Ellis could easily approach the YA and Teen genre with her stories. She sure has helped Sophie and her friends and any other kid who has read her books. She’s made this old adult smile a lot too:)

read an excerpt...

Mom just started her own consulting company, where she gives advice to people starting their own businesses. And already, I'm messing it up.

My mother's main job is helping out in Dad's dentist office and taking care of me and my eight-year-old brother, Cole. But before she got married and had us, she worked at a bank. Now that we're getting older, Mom wants to start working on her own again. This new consulting business is her chance.

"I'm sorry, Mom." I wring my hands when she crosses her arms around her chest. "We didn't mean to wreck your work. I'll fix these."

I set some files on the table, not sure what order they go in. Paper crinkles as Alexis imitates what I'm doing and mixes things up even more.

Mom rushes over to stop her.

“Why don’t you girls sit on the couch?”

My mother is meeting with Alexis' mother, Mrs. Gentry, to talk about ways to sell more of the scented candles she makes. Since Mrs. Gentry couldn't find a babysitter for Alexis she asked me and Chloe to keep an eye on her.

Mom made the big announcement about her consulting company at dinner last week.

"I know so many women with great business ideas who aren't sure how to get started," she explained to my father. "I want to help them get bank financing so they can be successful."

"Is that like Shark Tank?" asked Cole.

"Sort of." Mom smiled and rubbed his afro.

"What's Shark Tank?" I asked.

"That television show where people try to get investors to pay for their business ideas," Dad explained. “We watched it when you had a sleepover with your friends last weekend.”

It's a good thing that my father took my brother to his basketball practice this morning. If Cole saw this mess in the family room, I'm sure he'd have jokes.

I'll admit, the one he told at breakfast this morning made me laugh.

"What's a nosy pepper do?" he read from his joke book. "Get jalapeno business!" 

about Tonya Duncan Ellis...

Tonya Duncan Ellis is author of the award winning, bestselling, Sophie Washington children's book series, geared toward readers ages 8 to 12, and is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Her independently published books have been featured in the Houston Chronicle and the Baltimore Sun and have seen over 70,000 downloads and sales in the United States, India, Canada, and Great Britain. She has worked as a journalist and a freelance magazine writer, and is a graduate of Centre College of Kentucky and holds an M.B.A. degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

 

The twelve book Sophie Washington series stars a sweet and sassy African American preteen from Houston, TX and her diverse group of friends. Each funny and heartwarming story teaches lessons about friendship, responsibility, truthfulness, and perseverance.

Tonya loves to travel and has visited 49 American states, 20 countries, and three continents, but some of her best journeys have been between the pages of a novel. As a girl she could always be found with a book in her hand, and reading is still one of her favorite hobbies. When she's not reading or writing, the author likes to ride her bike, swim, and spend time with her husband and three children. She lives in Missouri City.

 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Tonya+Duncan+Ellis&i=stripbooks&ref

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