Al Capone Does My Shirts
Tales from Alcatraz #1
by Gennifer Choldenko

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade historical fiction

Moose Flanagan’s family moves to Alcatraz in 1935, where his dad will be working as a prison guard. Now Moose has to get used to a new school, keep his sister out of trouble, and deal with strict rules imposed by the prison warden, whose own daughter does whatever she can to break them.

I’d heard of this book and seen it around for a long time before deciding to read it. I expected something pretty light, maybe a little goofy or immature. And while it’s not exactly heavy, it’s definitely deeper than I expected. Moose’s sister, who is a few years older than him, is autistic, in the days before it had a name and when kids with autism were given a lot of different diagnoses. She tends to live in her own world, and sometimes that means fits of anger that can’t be controlled. Moose is left with Natalie now and then, and eventually his mother asks him to take her everywhere he goes. On top of that, his mother grasps at every possibly cure for Natalie that she hears about, in a way that is detrimental to her own mental health.

The author did a great job of making me feel connected to the characters in such a way that I felt a lot of emotions while reading the book. I was annoyed with the warden’s daughter, her schemes, and her dad’s refusal to see the truth about her. I both felt for the mom who didn’t know how to deal with having a daughter with mental issues and wanted to give her a stern talking to sometimes. And Moose himself is just trying to be a kid in very unusual circumstances. Though Al Capone is kind of obsessed over throughout the book, it seemed like he was to be more of an abstract figure than anything. But without giving any spoilers, he actually does have a more active part by the end, in a moment that actually made me let out a gasp and made me really intrigued about the next book. I’ve already recommended this book to my 13-year-old daughter, who might be on the top end of the age group for it, but I think she’ll like it. I also recommend it for other pre-teens and young teens as well as any adults who enjoy younger-audience books.

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