Molly and the Great American Family

by Cynthia Blair

Molly loves her four sisters and parents, but there's no doubt they are different from everyone else's family. Yet when her mother goes to Japan for three months, Molly has to take charge of her sisters -- and her father, the original absentminded professor. Now, just as everything goes even crazier than usual, Molly must prove to her archenemy, Candy Carlisle, that her odd family is as normal as apple pie . . .

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0449704289
• ISBN13: 9780449704288
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Fawcett Books
• Length: 247 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.8"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

"They might be weird, but they're never dull!"

While 15-year-old Molly Witherspoon's mother is away on business in Japan for three months, Molly and her four sisters (Lizzie, Emma, Ralph, and Clementine) are left to run the house on their own, with the occasional supervision from their absentminded father. During this time, Molly is busy working on her Today's Family class presentation. She intends to film her siblings in their everyday lives, hoping to shed some light on her misunderstood family, especially since one of her sisters (Emma, the eccentric 16-year-old who is interested in the occult) is the laughingstock at their high school. In addition to that, Molly has accepted a bet with Candy Carlisle (her arch rival since the second grade), that whomever gets a lower grade on their class presentation has to publicly praise the other's work. Yet this last matter isn't entirely wrapped up by the end of the book. (...)On occasion, the Witherspoon family is chaotic and weird, but, surprisingly, Molly and her four sisters get along very well. They're like the mirror image of the March sisters in Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women". In that respect, they are quite unusual. Still, "Molly and the Great American Family" is a heartwarming story of family/sister bonds, and their ability to solve everyday problems together is exemplary. This is a decent book for preteen and older girls, especially ones that can relate to the Witherspoon household.

Teriffic Book

This book was teriffic! It showed how a family that may seen a bit odd to everybody elese is a fun family to live with. It shows how the "typical" american family is more boring than the family that is diffrent and does diffrent things than other familes. I loved this book and you should defintly buy it!

Totally great...detailed and clear all the way through...

This was an extremely good book. I read the comments from another reader, and I totally disagree with their remark. Some of the characters may seem annoying at times, but that is the way they are meant to be. I think it would be the worst thing to read a book in which all the characters were nice and goody-goodys. Then it's boring! Molly and the Great American Family was well-written and there was always a clear explanation of each situation. I never once felt like I did not know what was going on. The best quality of this family I thought was their loyalty to one another. That's very uncommon. I think that this book is fit for any age, but particularly for teens because it relates most to them.