Uncle Daddy

by Ralph Fletcher Narrated by Edward Lewis

Overview

Rivers' real father left him and his mom six years ago, and Uncle Daddy has been taking care of Rivers in all the ways a dad cares for a son-even teaching him how to play baseball.

When his real father returns, Rivers is confused and angry. He had always thought that he'd express his anger at his father by socking him in the stomach. Now, face-to-face with his father, Rivers experiences feelings that are more complicated than he'd imagined. Will the reappearance of his dad affect his relationship with Uncle Daddy?

This heartfelt story, told from the point of view of a nine-and-a-half-year-old boy, is filled with insight and touches of humor.

Editorial Reviews

School Library Journal

Gr 4-6-A reassuring picture of forgiveness and acceptance within a family. Rivers has been raised by his mother and great-uncle, "Uncle Daddy," ever since his father went out to get a pizza and never came back. The boy's life is fairly typical of that of other nine-year-olds-until his father returns after a six-year absence. Then, anger, resentment, confusion, insecurity, and torn loyalties threaten to overwhelm the family. When Uncle Daddy suffers a near-fatal heart attack, Rivers and his parents come together in support and concern and the older man's physical healing parallels the relatives' emotional healing. The one-big-happy-family conclusion may come about a bit too quickly to be completely convincing, but youngsters will welcome it. While Uncle Daddy seems too good to be true, Rivers's parents are more multidimensional characters and the child's interactions with friends and his conflicted emotions concerning his father are portrayed realistically. This is not a first purchase, but it will appeal to readers who want an alternative to the grim realism of much contemporary fiction.-Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

When Rivers was three, his father went out to get a pizza and never returned. Now in fourth grade, Rivers does a lot of fantasizing about what he'd do if his father came back—"I'd wind up and sock him as hard as I could, right in the stomach." But when his fantasy becomes a reality, the situation stirs up far more ambiguous and confusing emotions than Rivers had anticipated. Since his father's disappearance, his too-good-to-be-alive great uncle (whom he calls Uncle Daddy) has filled the role of dad in Rivers's household. Despite the protagonist's amusingly rendered, emotionally justified anger toward his biological father, it's clear to the reader that Rivers does want to have a relationship with him, but is afraid this relationship will impinge upon the emotional connection he has with Uncle Daddy. Unwilling to trust the small, telling details of this tender tale, Fletcher conjures up a dramatic incident: Uncle Daddy suffers a near-fatal heart attack. This predictably forces River and his mother to depend on Rivers's biological father, whose expertise in the building trades—he helps build Uncle Daddy a downstairs bedroom so that the family won't have to constantly navigate the stairs—not only saves the day but shows off his newfound sense of responsibility as well. Despite this obvious gimmick, Fletcher is often insightful and his protagonist funny and winning. In this age of step and other nontraditional family groupings, the story should reassure youngsters that it's okay to love two father figures at the same time. (Fiction. 8-11)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169905861
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	06/22/2005
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

 

1.

MEMORY BOOK

Uncle Daddy and I are out hiking through the woods. We’re surrounded by pine trees so dense the forest seems almost gloomy. But a bit farther the path opens into a sunny little meadow. We have to stop a minute, blinking, letting our eyes get used to the light. He notices something and stops to look at some wild-flowers.

“Trillium,” he says, and picks one.

A little farther he bends down again.

“These are jack-in-the-pulpit.”

Back home Uncle Daddy takes a book down from a shelf in his room. It’s a humongous dictionary, the kind you might see in a library. This monster must weigh at least twenty pounds. It’s a foot thick, and it’s got two thousand and twenty-three pages in it. Those last twenty-three pages really kill me. I mean, they could’ve just called it quits at an even two thousand. But no! They just had to give you those extra twenty-three pages, as if you didn’t already have more words than any one person could possibly use.

Uncle Daddy opens the dictionary. He flips through the pages until he finds jack-in-the-pulpit . He puts the jack-in-the-pulpit blossom into the book, right next to the word. Then he finds the word trillium and tucks the yellow blossom into the book, right next to that word.

“Trillium,” I say. “That sounds more like a song than a flower.”

“Or a radioactive element,” Uncle Daddy says, smiling.

 

I was in first grade the first time I saw Uncle Daddy open the big book. That day he put a salt-water taffy wrapper (he had just taken me to visit a candy factory) next to the word taffy.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked him.

“I’m going to use this dictionary like a memory book,” he explained. “Someday, when you’re all grown up, you’ll open this book to look up a word and you’ll find this stuff.”

Since then I’ve seen him do the same thing a hundred times. After we go to the circus, he puts one of the ticket stubs next to the word circus. A bright autumn leaf goes in the M’s, next to the word maple. In the past few years he’s saved so much stuff in that dictionary that it’s pretty lumpy. Now he closes the huge book, hoists it up, and puts it back on the shelf.

“Someday you’ll open this book and all these little things will remind you of all the fun we’ve had together.” He smiles at me. “And you’ll remember me.”

As if I could forget him.

Copyright © 2001 by Ralph Fletcher All rights reserved.

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