Al Capone Shine My Shoes

          The book I'm reading this week is called Al Capone Shines My Shoes. This book is about a boy named Moose Flanagan and his life on Alcatraz island. So, Moose's dad works as a prison guard and an electrician on Alcatraz so they live in an apartment on the island. There apartment is one of the worst, reason being their building has a horrible plumbing system. All of the convicts have jobs. Willy One Arm and Buddy Boy work at the warden's house, Seven Fingers (an ax murderer) does the plumbing, and Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly (and many other prisoners) do the laundry.
      Moose's sister, Natalie, has disabilities that mean she can't get into very many schools. There is one school that the family believes can help her. She has applied for it a couple of times and she was rejected. Moose, out of desperation, sent a letter to Al Capone asking for him to get Natalie into the school. Moose got a note in his laundry saying 'Done' and Natalie had gotten in. There was no possible way that Al Capone could have helped them. He's locked up in a cell and he can't write a letter or call anyone without it being censored word for word.
      Later on, a friend of his, her name is Annie, got Moose's laundry by mistake and it had another note in it. It said 'Your turn'. Annie was very curious about this and asked many questions. Finally, she was able to squeeze it out of him. Moose told her everything and she was very worried about it and told him to tell someone who could do something for him. Like his parents or the warden or one of the officers. Moose refused to, making Annie very mad.
       A friend of Moose's was coming to visit, his name was Scout. Moose and Scout love baseball and they wanted to play some during the visit. The only kid on the island besides Moose who was any good at baseball was Annie. One of Moose's other friends, Jimmy, offered to play though he was no good at it. Jimmy's little sister wanted to play as well, she even managed to get Annie to play. But there was a condition. Moose couldn't play. Moose was arguing hoping that Scout would back him up, but Scout just said for a little while, not the whole game.
       Piper, the warden's daughter, gave them a tour of her house and introduced them to the two cons working at her house. It was rather entertaining because Buddy Boy could do some funny impressions of Moose's dad and I thought that was interesting, maybe he was an identity thief or something like that. The other con, Willy One Arm, is the cook. He was a funny character because he had a pet. It was a mouse named Molly. He started talking to it as though it could understand him.
       That's as far as I got in the book. I find it really interesting and funny. I would recommend it to anyone who likes comedy, and adventure. Here is a word I found in the book that I didn't understand at first: Censored. The sentence was: He's not allowed to make a phone call or write a letter without it being censored word for word. The meaning is: examined. I have read up to page 85 out of 258 .

I realize that I am not the best summarizer and that this could've been shorter, but I couldn't imagine summarizing what I read without certain details. I hope you enjoyed!


KF