Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

Choldenko, Gennifer. 2004. Al Capone Does My Shirts. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons.

If you think being 12-years-old is tough; try being 12-years-old and having to live on Alcatraz Island among the murderers, thieves, and swindlers who are locked up there just so your sister can attend a special school. The year is 1935 and Matthew Flanagan, nicknamed Moose due to a recent growth spurt, would like to spend his time doing the things most 12-year-olds do; playing baseball, noticing girls, and hanging out with his friends. Instead, he is living on Alcatraz island where his father works as a guard and taking his 16-year-old mentally-challenged sister, who his mother tries to pass off as ten in order to make her eligible to attend an experimental school for children with special needs, everywhere he goes. Complicating matters are his worries about what hare-brained scheme his mother will come up with next to make his sister "normal" and what kind of trouble the warden's pretty, con-artist daughter will get him into. Set against the backdrop of Alcatraz Island, where, during the story's time frame, Al Capone was actually incarcerated, the author adds authenticity with details of the guards and their families who lived on the island prison and the problems and misunderstandings surrounding the mental state that would become known as autism.