The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher

I. Love. This. Book. And not just because one of the characters has an imaginary cheetah named Flare.

Sam, Jax, Eli, and Frog live with their two dads in a small New England coastal town. Nobody cares that the kids aren't all the same race, nobody cares that they have two dads. The book follows the boys (in chapters of alternating perspectives) over the course of the school year as they deal with crabby neighbors, two-faced friends, and new schools. It's sweet, it's funny, and I can't wait to read more.

*****
Used in my Are You Kidding Me? book club, summer 2023. I don't think the kids laughed out loud, not like I did.

The four Fletcher brothers each expect the upcoming school year to be the best ever. Twelve-year-old Sam believes that he will be the youngest player in history to make the Shipton Under-15 Elite Soccer team, while ten-year-old Jax is excited to have finally made it to the fourth grade, in the Upper Elementary school. Eli, also ten, is ecstatic at the opportunity to attend Pinnacle, a private school focused exclusively on academics, while Frog (real name Jeremiah) is heading to kindergarten for the first time. As the brothers and their two fathers, Dad and Papa, go through their year, they confront numerous challenges - a grumpy neighbor whom they just can't seem to befriend, conflicts with erstwhile friends, the discovery that show more sometimes what we want isn't everything we hoped it would be - but also experience the joys of a loving and close family and home.

Having seen it compared to Beverly Cleary's Ramona books, as well as Jeanne Birdsall's more recent stories about the Penderwick sisters, I was eager to pick up The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher, and for the most part I was not disappointed. Dana Alison Levy does a good job creating a cast of characters, each of which feels like an individual. I appreciated the fact that the various issues of identity here - the same-sex parents; the four adopted brothers: one African-American, two Euro-American, one Indian-American - are taken for granted in the narrative, rather than being the focus of the story. This is just a gentle family tale, one which happens to feature a group of boys being parented by two men, but which experiences all of the joys and struggles of any other family. I don't know that I found the writing quite as accomplished as either Cleary or Birdsall's - it was sweet, but not especially memorable - but I enjoyed it enough to track down this year's sequel, The Family Fletcher Takes Rock Island. Recommended to children who enjoy fun family stories, or to anyone looking for stories about families with same-sex parents. show less

I loved reading The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy. On one level this book describes the day to day lives of a loving, if somewhat out of the norm, family. The two fathers and four adopted sons all provide an interesting combination of personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. What struck me most about this book was the underlying story of our preconceived notions about people. We know that Sam is a sports guy, yet some are surprised by his interest, and talent, in the school play. The "brain", Eli, gets to go to a school for brainy kids, yet he is ultimately unhappy there. Since Frog, the baby of the group, has invented characters in his life, the family assumes that his new school friend is just another show more figment of his imagination (which she is not). Then there is the new next door neighbor, Mr. Nelson, who seems to have not one nice word to say to anyone. When it is discovered late in the book that he has been caring for his dying mother, both the characters in the story and the readers look at him in a different light.

This is a wonderful book that weaves a lovely story and, at the same time, forces the reader to challenge our assumptions about the characters in the book and, hopefully, other people in our lives. show less

It was pretty good, but I was kind of bored while reading it. I'll definitely recommend it, and it is what the author says it is - a happy story with little conflict that gets relatively resolved in the end. There is conflict, normal middle years conflict, and it was tackled ok, but there were so many characters and the book could only be so long. It's really nice to read about queer, interracial families living great, middle-class lives with no worries on top of writing reports for school and not being cool, but maybe a slight nod to the fact that the world isn't over racism and homophobia would have made the narrative more compelling for me. I'll definitely recommend this book to kids though.

Two fathers and four sons make up this fantastic family. The book follows one school year as the boys adjust to changing situations. Add a neighbor who just does not want to be friends and you have a hit. My students really liked Frog, the youngest son. He has a vivid imagination and tons of energy. This is a great introduction to changing family dynamics.

Fun, funny school story with a family full of boys -- 2 dads, 4 adopted kids, a dog and a cat, all male. Nice mix of diversity in the family, clear respect and interest in cultural holidays for all the kids and in making their own family traditions that work for them. It's basically a gentle, wacky school story like the Penderwicks or the Quimbys, and the normalcy of day to day life is the attraction. There are challenges and mistakes and great times together.

There's so much to like about this book! It's a sweet family story, along the lines of The Melendy Quartet, or even Ramona, although contemporary references to phones, etc., give it a slightly less timeless quality. Those who are looking for diverse families and characters will be delighted with the Fletchers and their town. I whole-heartedly agree that we need diverse books, and this is a welcome addition. However, every. single. character bends or breaks some stereotype. To this adult reader, it gets to be a bit much. There is an innocence to the characters, very few plot twists, and episodic chapters, so I think this will be enjoyed as a read-aloud to younger children (perhaps the 5-8 crowd?), or as a whole-family read-aloud.