The Fletch­er Fam­i­ly con­sists of two fathers and four adopt­ed, fun-lov­ing, ram­bunc­tious but thought­ful boys. Their lives are filled with adven­ture, friend­ship, warm fam­i­ly inter­ac­tions, schools, pets, sports, arts, mis­takes, love and sen­si­tiv­i­ty to those around them. They cel­e­brate a diverse menu of reli­gious hol­i­days through­out the cal­en­dar year includ­ing Hin­du, Chris­t­ian and notably Jew­ish ones, all suf­fused with good val­ues and with fam­i­ly iden­ti­ty tak­ing cen­ter stage.

One plot point involves reach­ing out to the grouchy neigh­bor next door, who seems at first imper­vi­ous to all friend­ly over­tures. But the boys don’t give up. They per­se­vere and con­tin­ue to show kind­ness in spite of a com­e­dy of mis­un­der­stood errors and a series of painful lessons learned. Anoth­er inci­dent involves acknowl­edg­ing a mis­tak­en deci­sion and shows how one son takes pos­i­tive steps to rec­ti­fy the mis­take as he learns much about him­self and oth­ers. None of these gen­tly demon­strat­ed lessons are por­trayed in a les­son-like way and each of them are sit­u­a­tions that chil­dren can relate to.

This is a fun book, filled with humor, demon­strat­ing to read­ers that fam­i­lies who might be a bit dif­fer­ent from theirs can have fine val­ues and a great home life. It is rec­om­mend­ed for ages 9 – 12.