Al Capone does What!!??

Today I will be looking at another one of the Reading Olympics books and it also happens to be a Newbery Honor Book as well as a New York Times Best Seller.  All of these distinctions make me think that this is going to be an excellent book.

The book is Gennifer Choldenko's Al Capone Does my Shirts.  Now at first I thought that was just a catch title or an allusion to the gangster days of old.  But as I started reading I realized that the setting is 1935 on Alcatraz Island.  Moose's dad works as a guard/electrician at Alcatraz prison and in that time all of the guards lived on the island with their families.  All of the families would send out their laundry to the prison and the prisoners did all of the families laundry and sent it back.  At this point I thought, "oh my goodness, Al Capone really does his shirts!"

As a special education teacher, as well as a reading teacher, what I really appreciated about this book was the relationship between Moose and his 'younger' sister Natalie.  Natalie has what appears to be Autism, though her diagnosis is never explicitly stated in the book.  I think that sometimes we put so much attention on the student with the special needs we forget about their "typical" siblings.  It was refreshing to see something from a siblings point of view.

I found this book to be engaging, honest, and astounding all at the same time.  The setting adds a level of intrigue and drama to an already captivating story.  This book is definitely deserving of all of its accolades.

Making laundry interesting....that's kids stuff.