Al Capone Does My Homework

Al Capone Does My Homework by Gennifer Choldenko
Thirteen year old Moose Flanagan Lives on Alcatraz island where his dad has been promoted to a new warden position at Alcatraz prison. Wardens are at the top of the hit list amongst the prisoners and Moose feels the responsibility to keep his family safe. He has a sixteen year old big sister who is autistic who he also wishes to protect. One night while Moose's parents are out, the house catches on fire and he blames himself since he was supposed to be watching his big sister. he doesn't believe she was the culprit of the fire and he is determined to find out who did it to prevent he and his sister from getting the bad wrap. Prisoners are sent to clean up the apartment and one of them is the infamous Al Capone, who leaves Moose a clue to who did it on one of his school essay found on the floor.all while this is happening there is some sketchy business going down, people who were poor before ca now afford special things, where is this money coming from? It's counterfeit from a heist in the city. Moose's father gets stabbed by one of the prisoners and is seriously injured. Once again Moose is faced with guilt as he saw the stabbing about to occur but was unable to stop it until he threw a baseball at the inmate which in turn saved his father's life. Nat Moose's sister struggles with making eye contact when speaking with others which ends with her becoming frustrated and not accomplishing much. She is given the responsibility to go ask the front desk here her father is and succeeds. The family is shocked with her accomplishment, late in the book it is found out that a man named Donny set fire to the apartment not Nat. Her name is cleared and cover ups are discovered throughout the prison. This book shed light onto the difficulties of autism as well as the historical context of prison life during the 1930's. The book uses one of the most famous criminals to play an important role in the book while providing historical accuracies. This was a great book and I highly recommend it. Due tot he minor violence and the mature topics discussed I would suggest this book for fifth grader through eight grade.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Love You Forever- Pop Up edition

A letter to Amy

Holes