Literature / Tales From Alcatraz

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.

Al Capone Does My Shirts is a Historical Fiction children's book by Gennifer Choldenko. Less well known are the latter books in the series:

1. Al Capone Does My Shirts (2006)
2. Al Capone Shines My Shoes (2011)
3. Al Capone Does My Homework (2014)
4. Al Capone Throws Me a Curve (2018)

In 1935, Moose and his family — his parents and his sister Natalie — move to Alcatraz after their dad gets a job as an electrician and guard at the prison.

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Tropes

• Age Is Relative: Played for Drama. Their mother strategically lies and claim daughter Natalie was 10, year after year, because there are more services available for younger children than older ones. It worked for a time because her developmental disability makes Natalie seem young for her age. But now Natalie is 16-years-old and fully and unambiguously postpubescent. People are increasingly skeptical of the story that she's 10.
  Mrs. Kelly: I can certainly understand what your mother was up to with that. There's a real bias against older children. And I can't swear I wouldn't have tried the same thing if I were in her shoes. Sometimes with these kids it's difficult to tell exactly how old they are, but in the case of your sister I'm afraid it's pretty clear she's at least fourteen.
• The Alcatraz: It's set on literal actual Alcatraz Island.
  Mrs Flanigan: I was talking to Bea Trixle about this yesterday, and you know what she said? She said we are so lucky to live here because Alcatraz is a lot safer than any neighborhood in San Francisco. She says she never locks her door. She never has to. Our bad guys are all locked up.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • In the second book, trustees Willy One-Arm, Seven Fingers, and Buddy Boy act like reformed men who care about the kids, but they are plotting to escape and Buddy and Seven Fingers have no compunctions about killing a baby to silence his cries before their escape, and Willy only stops them because he's convinced doing so on Friday the 13th would be bad luck.
  • In Al Capone Does My Homework, frequent visitor to the island Donny Caconi is an affable joker who everyone likes until they catch him cheating at cards and learn he is involved in other thefts, con games, and even arson.
• The Caretaker:
• Ceiling Banger: Natalie is kicked out of the Esther P. Marinoff school after two days because of her screaming. Logistically, they cannot prioritize one student over the success of the school, and the success of the school depends on not causing problems with their neighbors. Hours of screaming at dawn in a residential area might do that.
  Mr. Purdy: And though our neighbors are largely encouraging of what we're trying to do here, we must be cautious about taking children who might strain the relationships we've worked so hard to build. Children who are, one might say, overly vocal.
• Disease by Any Other Name: Natalie is severely autistic, but it's 1935. Autism won't be described until the 1940s and it won't be added to the DSM until 1980. There's some Deliberate Values Dissonance. The other Alcatraz kids ask Moose if she's "retarded", and he's angered by this, but he can't really refute it. Given the time, that may well be her literal diagnosis. Natalie's short-term teacher, Mrs. Kelly, says she's not supposed to count, rock, play with her buttons, etc. In modern parlance that would be called "suppressing stimming" and it's frowned upon. On the other hand, Mrs. Kelly also advises the family bring Natalie along on errands so she's not isolated at home, which is reasonably in keeping with modern advice.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Invoked Trope. When Moose writes a letter asking a favor of Al Capone, he adds "PS I like your mother very much."
  Piper: [reading] "I like your mother very much"?
  Moose: You got to say something about the guy's mother.
  Piper: Why?
  Moose: Because then he remembers he has one. And he knows we know her too. Makes him act better. It's The Mom Rule—all guys use it.
  Piper: This is Al Capone we're talking about. I don't think he'll fall for a cheap trick like that.
  Moose: I'm not taking it out.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Infamous and (despite frequent Pet the Dog moments) ruthless mob boss Al Capone receives loving visits from his wife and mother and talks about wanting to spend time with his son after leaving prison.
  • It gradually transpires that prison guard Darby Trixle treats the prisoners like they're subhuman, displays a chillingly ableist attitude, sabotages his rivals, and is eventually implied to be taking bribes from Capone, but he can be very affectionate to his wife and seven-year-old daughter.
  • The Count, an unrepentant con man convict from the third book, sends money to his daughter.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Mr. Flanagan is viewed as foolish by many for his focus on wanting to rehabilitate the convicts, but a man doesn't go from an electrician with no experience at prisons to a potential warden in barely a year without having good people and staffing skills, as best shown in Al Capone Shines My Shoes, when Mr. Flanagan makes it clear that he's willing to deal fairly with Bitch in Sheep's Clothing inmate plumber Seven Fingers, and may even like him, but he doesn't trust the man just because of his affability and doesn't want his son to either.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: It is heavily implied that the dramatic (and fictional) escape attempt from the second book will be hidden from the public due to the embarrassment of how the escapees manipulated the warden and only got foiled by a group of the guards' kids.
• Idiot Savant: Natalie has two classic "autistic" skills.
  • Calendar calculations
    Moose: When's your birthday, Piper?
    Piper: November sixteenth.
    Moose: 1922?
    Piper: Yep.
    Moose: Natalie, what day of the week was Piper born?
    Natalie: Thursday.
  • Math
    Theresa: Numbers Nat, we need you!
    Piper: Three dollars and twenty cents split [...] three ways.
    Natalie: One dollar six cents, two cents left over.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Played for Drama. Natalie is severely autistic, has sensory issues with clothing, and is known to strip naked from time to time. She has some mild understanding that her family scolds her for doing this, but has no serious understanding of the social obligation of clothing. Moose tells a story of Natalie doing this at a cousin's wedding once when they were children, and then it was merely horribly embarrassing for their family. Now Natalie is a teenager with a sexually mature body, and they live on an island full of violent, sexually repressed criminals — now this tendency of hers is terrifying.
• It Will Never Catch On: In Al Capone Does My Homework, Darby predicts that future record-setting president Franklin D. Roosevelt will be a one-term president.
• Little Miss Con Artist: Piper does stuff like telling exaggerated stories about Alcatraz to her classmates to make them pay for her to smuggle their laundry onto Alcatraz for the famous prisoners to clean and then is willing to let the other guards' kids take the blame for the racket.
• The Meddling Kids Are Useless: In Al Capone Does My Homework, the main plot is Moose trying to figure out who set the fire that his sister is suspected of starting and worrying an investigative task force may decide to fixate on Natalie as the obvious suspect. The task force identifies the correct culprit (someone Moose barely considered) without much trouble, although Moose does uncover other important wrongdoings while snooping around.
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: Downplayed Trope. Al Capone was previously in prison in Atlanta, where he got preferential treatment and ran him empire from in there. They transferred him to Alcatraz to try to stop that, yet the idea that it didn't stop it still remains.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Piper is a Little Miss Con Artist for most of the series, and is secure in the knowledge that being the warden's daughter lets her get away with a lot. In Al Capone Throws Me a Curve, Moose spends the next several chapters being adamant that Piper's up to no good when she befriends Natalie right when tension between their fathers is at an all-time high, even though Piper has recently had a humbling Break the Haughty experience. However, Piper really does get along with Natalie and helps stop an attempt to use her to make Mr. Flanagan look bad.
• Sequel Non-Entity:
  • None of the prisoners who try to escape in the second book are seen or mentioned in the next two installments.
  • Scout, Moose's best friend outside of the other kids who live on Alcatraz, plays decent roles in the first two books, then only gets a single passing mention in the third book before returning for the fourth.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: Averted Trope. Moose is a 12-year-old boy who's 5 feet and 11.5 inches tall. He's as tall as his mom and 2 inches taller than his dad.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In Al Capone Does My Homework, a corrupt staff member tells Natalie that, between being Beneath Notice and Good with Numbers, she'd make a good criminal. She replies by simply saying, "Alcatraz #317", the prisoner number that he'll have if he's sent to Alcatraz for his crimes.
• Succession Crisis: Rumors that Warden Williams may be fired for mishandling a strike in Al Capone Throws a Curve have various people (prisoners and staff members alike) scrambling to do things that will advance the prospects of his likely successors (including Mr. Flanagan and Darby Trixle) or curry their favor.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • Among the young teenagers, Piper is a fashionable Little Miss Con Artist, while Annie cares more about pitching baseballs and reading books than stereotypically girlish pursuits.
  • Among the seven-year-olds, there's Theresa Mattaman (a nosy, rough-and-tumble girl with several missing teeth) and Janet Trixle (who braids her hair and has many pixie imaginary friends). However, Janet is also a bit of a Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak, as best shown when she sometimes imitates her guard father, complete with carrying a bullhorn around.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Natalie loves lemon cake.
• Wanted a Son Instead: The Warden and Darby Trixle can both be doting toward their daughters but publicly admit they've spent a long time wanting sons.
• Wardens Are Evil: Warden Williams is a tyrant who threatens to fire Moose's father just because Moose said something rude. A slight subversion in that his victims aren't prisoners, though.