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Al Capone Shines My Shoes

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
When I first moved here, I thought all the bad guys were on one side of the bars and all the good guys were on the other. But lately, I’ve begun to wonder . . .
Moose’s family moved to Alcatraz so his father could work as a guard and his sister could attend a special school in San Francisco. Living on an island with a few hundred no-name hit men, con men, and mad dog murderers (and a handful of bank robbers, too) has its challenges. Like Officer Darby–who seems to have it in for Moose; Jimmy–who feels jealous of Moose’s baseball friend Scout; Annie–who demands that Moose fess up to a secret that could get his family kicked off Alcatraz; and Piper, the warden’s cute, danger-loving daughter–who is as mad at Moose as often as she is sweet on him. By comparison, Willy One Arm and Buddy Boy, the cons who work at the warden’s house, and Seven Fingers, the ax murderer who helps his family out when their toilet is stopped up, don’t seem all that bad. But the line between good and bad is much clearer than Moose realizes. And if he doesn’t figure it out soon, he could be in a world of trouble.  
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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Moose Flanagan is a good-natured 12-year-old growing up on Alcatraz in 1935, where his father works as a prison guard. With a youthful tone, Kirby Heyborne expertly delivers a full portrait of Moose and his emotions. These include his guilty relief that his autistic sister, Natalie, has left the island to attend a special needs school, his alternating attraction and infuriation with the pretty warden's daughter, and his palpable fear that Al Capone wants a favor in return for his having helped to get Natalie into the new school. Heyborne creates multiple convincing characters, including the vindictive Officer Darby Trixle; Moose's friend Jimmy, who prefers breeding flies to playing baseball, and Natalie, whose autism (a disorder not recognized in 1935) causes her to spin out of control in stressful moments. Heyborne doesn't miss a crucial detail. A.B. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 17, 2009
      Choldenko's follow-up to her Newbery Honor novel Al Capone Does My Shirts
      picks up where the first volume ended. It's August 1935 and 12-year-old narrator Moose Flanagan's autistic sister, Natalie, is headed to a boarding school for special needs children, promising an easier life for him and his parents (“We've been three people and an octopus all of my life, and now the octopus is gone”). But since Natalie's enrollment was secretly engineered by the prison's most notorious inmate, it's an ominous development when Moose finds a note in his laundry that reads “Your turn,” written in Capone's script. It takes another 100 pages for the tension to ratchet up, but fans of the first book will enjoy getting reacquainted; Piper, the warden's manipulative daughter, and Darby Trixle, a noxious guard, provide lots of conflict for good-natured Moose. The hourly count bell, carping gulls and rumble of the fog horn form a soundtrack that Moose calls “the ticking of our own island clock.” Ages 10–up.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:3.8
  • Lexile® Measure:620
  • Interest Level:4-8(MG)
  • Text Difficulty:2-3

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