This is one of my favorite middle grade series of books. As I was working my way through the Newbery award winners, I came across the first book Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko and loved it. It is a fictional story of a real place: the town around Alcatraz island where the people (including children!) actually lived in order to work at the famous prison. It was fascinating! The story was interesting and exciting; the characters were likable and relatable, and I especially appreciated the character with autism in a time when not much was known about the disorder (in fact, I’m not even sure the word “autism” was used at all). It helped me understand a little more about what it might be like to live with autism, or to know and love someone who has it. Additionally, each book has a factual chapter at the back, talking about the history of Alcatraz island and some of the real people who lived there. Highly recommend this series for anyone, including adults!
From Amazon (a quote from the book):
Today I moved to Alcatraz, 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 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. And then 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.
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