Authors: Gennifer Choldenko
ISBN-13: 9780142403709, ISBN-10: 0142403709
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Date Published: April 2006
Edition: Reprint
Gennifer Choldenko was the youngest in a family of four kids, where her nickname was “Snot-Nose.” Her quirky sense of humor made its debut at the dinner table when Gennifer was a very little kid. She is the author of seven children’s books, including Notes from a Liar and Her Dog, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period; and Al Capone Shines My Shoes.
Moose Flannagan moves with his family to Alcatraz so his dad can work as a prison guard and his sister, Natalie, can attend a special school. But Natalie has autism, and when she's denied admittance to the school, the stark setting of Alcatraz begins to unravel the tenuous coping mechanisms Moose's family has used for dealing with her disorder.
When Moose meets Piper, the cute daughter of the Warden, he knows right off she's trouble. But she's also strangely irresistible. All Moose wants to do is protect Natalie, live up to his parents' expectations, and stay out of trouble. But on Alcatraz, trouble is never very far away.
Set in 1935, when guards actually lived on Alcatraz Island with their families, Choldenko's second novel brings humor to the complexities of family dynamics and illuminates the real struggle of a kid trying to free himself from the “good boy” stance he's taken his whole life.
Natalie's story is an important thread, sensitively handled. But what stays in the mind is the teeming mini-society of the island, where guards' families really did live and where a kid really might have encountered Al Capone, an inmate at Alcatraz from 1934 to 1939. Elizabeth Ward
Part 1 | ||
1. | Devil's Island | 3 |
2. | Errand Boy | 7 |
3. | Trick Monkey | 13 |
4. | American Laugh-Nosed Beet | 22 |
5. | Murderers Darn My Socks | 29 |
6. | Sucker | 35 |
7. | Big for Seventh Grade | 42 |
8. | Prison Guy Plays Ball | 48 |
9. | Nice Little Church Boy | 53 |
10. | Not Ready | 60 |
11. | The Best in the Country | 64 |
12. | What About the Electric Chair? | 71 |
13. | One-Woman Commando Unit | 80 |
14. | Al Capone's Baseball | 87 |
15. | Looking for Scarface | 90 |
16. | Capone Washed Your Shirts | 98 |
17. | Baseball on Tuesday | 103 |
18. | Not on My Team | 106 |
19. | Daddy's Little Miss | 109 |
20. | Warning | 117 |
Part 2 | ||
21. | It Never Rains on Monday | 125 |
22. | Al Capone's Mama | 130 |
23. | She's not Cute | 135 |
24. | Like a Regular Sister | 140 |
25. | My Gap | 143 |
26. | Convict Baseball | 147 |
27. | Idiot | 149 |
28. | Tall for Her Age | 154 |
29. | Convict Choir Boy | 159 |
30. | Eye | 165 |
31. | My Dad | 171 |
32. | The Button Box | 174 |
Part 3 | ||
33. | The Sun and the Moon | 179 |
34. | Happy Birthday | 186 |
35. | The Truth | 192 |
36. | Waiting | 195 |
37. | Carrie Kelly | 199 |
38. | What happened? | 205 |
39. | The Warden | 212 |
40. | Al Capone Does My Shirts | 215 |
Author's Note | 217 | |
Notes | 227 |