The Family Fletcher Takes Rock Island by Dana Alison Levy

In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary. There is constant action and delightful humor, but there are also realistic present-day problems and happy solutions.Īn old-fashioned summer adventure set in a very modern world, this lively family tale will leave readers impatient for more. Together with the Galindo girls, the four boys solve the mystery of the closed lighthouse and its unpleasant buyer-to-be. Blond, white Sam, 13, finds friends in the local theater and discovers Shakespeare African-American Jax, now 11, pals around with Alex and experiences real bigotry for the first time his white near-twin Eli has his 11th birthday and conquers his fear of kayaking and 6-year-old Indian-American Frog struggles to teach their two cats to swim. The energetic third-person narrative makes use of alternating points of view to chronicle each boy's personal story. Issues of adoption and same-sex parents recede into near invisibility as the boys face other challenges. The cheerful disorder of a large family takes center stage in this companion to The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher (2014). When the four Fletcher boys and their two fathers arrive at their traditional August vacation cottage on a New England coastal island, they discover their beloved lighthouse next door fenced off and new Latino neighbors, the Galindos, who have two daughters, teenage Val and her younger sister, Alex. There’s even a villain in the plot that the Fletcher boys expose by the end of the story.Even on historic Rock Island, “Where Time Stands Still,” things change. Life lessons are learned dealing with how to except change, trying new things, living in a diverse family and realizing there is prejudice in the world and also conquering fears. Why is it fenced up? Who is the new owner? The humor of how the family adapts to the changes in their summer vacation spot is entertaining. A main point is that the lighthouse next to their house that they would play in is all fenced up.

They head off to their vacation home at Rock Island where everything that was familiar and routine has suddenly changed. The Fletcher family includes 2 dads, 4 adopted boys, 2 cats, and 1 dog. This book has humor, nostalgia, diversity, life lessons, and even a mystery to solve. ( Family Fletcher series, #2) Delacorte Press, 2016.

The Family Fletcher Takes Rock Island by Dana Alison Levy