"Al Capone Does My Shirts"

“Al Capone Does My Shirts” is a wonderfully written novel about a teen age boy, Matthew Flannigen, aka “Moose”, and his autistic sister Natalie, who happened to live on the Alcatraz Island near the San Francisco Bay. The island was famous for housing the most unforgiving, maximum security prison at the time, called the Alcatraz. In the 1930’s only the most infamously dangerous of the convicts ended up there, because nobody was ever able to escape from Alcatraz. Ironically, though, the island was considered one of the safest places around, even safer that San Francisco city, because of the maximum security (3 guards per one prisoner). The reason Mathew and his family ended up on the island was because his dad had gotten a job as an electrician/guard and that promised to support the family’s constant financial needs to provide for Natalie’s disability. In 1935 people did not know much about autism, so most people simply considered Natalie crazy. The only hope Natalie’s parents had for her was to put her to the Esther Marinoff’s School, where she could learn to cope with her situation and lead a more or less normal life. The problem was that no school wanted to keep Natalie for a long time because of her constant tantrums and crying. In fact, she failed the admission at the Esther Marinoff’s School as well. Consequently, Moose had to babysit his older sister, so his parents could go to work to save the money for Natalie’s treatment.
Throughout the book the reader gets to experience not only the lives of the families and children living on the Alcatraz Island, but also the personal struggles that Moose and family have while trying to raise Natalie.