Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

Today I moved to a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. I'm not the only kid who lives here. There's my sister, Natalie, except she doesn't count. And there are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cooks or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. Plus, there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don't want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to.

Comments

Joseph said…
Well, sort of OK. Imean there is good parts but there are also parts that they should have left out. If you've read it, you know what I mean. You wont be bored reading this but you wont be completely entertained. But who knows. maybe you'll like it more than me.
Anonymous said…
This book was good I guess but the last half isn't really that interesting to me.
Anonymous said…
This book could have more entertaining parts in it. Some people might like this book ,but I think it was sort of boring.

-Conner C.
Anonymous said…
I didn't really like this book because it was kind of boring. I liked the setting, but other than that, it was sort of bad. (to me, ofcourse)


- Tammy
Overall, it's an ok book.
Matt S said…
this book needs more of an ending than just showing what the note said
Cynthia said…
It's not my type of book, but it was better than some I have read. It was a good book to put on the list though.
Tracy Callard said…
I liked this book because it showed how a middle-school aged kid dealt with a sibling with a disability -- And I've taught many middle schoolers who have been in that situation. In fact, several kids on our team right now have a brother, sister, or cousin with special needs. It's cool that an author would write about this sensitive topic in a humorous, yet still tasteful way.

On Alcatraz: Of course I had heard about Alcatraz, but I had no idea that regular families actually LIVED there!

Also, I really got a kick out of the "ironic" ending (Al Capone)-- Don't spill the beans here on the blog if you've read it.
Anonymous said…
It's a really really REALLY good book. Natalie having autism is interesting, and puts a plot twist in. Yay plot twists! Anyway, living on a criminal island must be pretty interesting...

Jalen C.
Nathan W. said…
2/3 boring, 1/3 okay. Some relatively suspenseful parts, but other than that it's pretty average
Anonymous said…
I picked this up by mistake, but it was the best mistake ever. Besides my birth, of course. The characters were all different, and I loved how it used famous gangsters, such as Al Capone. Even though it had little to do with Al Capone, I still relished in the story.

-Avery
Anonymous said…
This is a good book. It's pretty much realistic fiction most of the way the way through, so it's interesting but believable. The fact that the sister is autistic makes it really interesting. It was so good, it only took me a few day s to read because I couldn't put it down!

-Blake D.

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