Al Capone Does My Shirts was chosen as a Newbery Honor Book in 2005, and also won many other awards. The author, Gennifer Choldenko, was especially pleased to win the Schneider Family Book Award which honors “a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences” according to the website of the American Library Association.

Written for children, but loved by adults as well, this novel is set in one of the oddest and most fascinating places in the world: Alcatraz, the island home of what used to be a maximum security prison from 1934 to 1963. At that time, prisoners were not the only ones living on Alcatraz. When the story takes place, in the late 1930’s, many prison guards and other employees lived in apartments there with their families. The warden had a house.

In Choldenko’s novel, Moose, age 12, is forced to move to Alcatraz by his parents, but has a hard time adjusting to life away from his best friend in Santa Monica. There are other children on the island, but none he connects with right away. The warden’s daughter, Piper, is a trouble maker he tries to ignore, unsuccessfully. When Moose goes to school in San Francisco and meets Scout, he has a chance to play baseball with other boys. Then his mother ruins his fun by insisting that he go home from school immediately after school every day to take care of his older sister, Natalie, who is autistic.

Choldenko chose an unusual and exciting location for the novel, and it plays as important a role as any of her characters. According to an interview posted on her website, she got the idea for the novel from a newspaper article, then volunteered as a docent on Alcatraz to do her research. At the end of the novel she includes a few pages about Alcatraz history, noting what was historically accurate in her novel, and what parts were pure fiction.

Another element of the novel that contributed to its success was Natalie’s character - an autistic teenage girl who doubled as a human calculator while being totally out of touch with any part of reality other than her button collection and numbers. This character, while being wholly fictional, was based on Choldenko’s observation of her own older autistic sister. Moose’s predicament gives a voice to anyone who has been a caretaker of an autistic relative.

The novel’s bright red cover and a photograph of Alcatraz are essential to the appeal of the book. Now that it has a shiny silver Newbery Honor Book sticker as well, Al Capone Does My Shirts is sure to attract attention for years to come.

I recently finished reading Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck. Though I’d read many of his novels and short stories, this was the first time I’d read any non-fiction by him, and I was pleasantly impressed with his humor and easy-to-read, friendly writing style.

Travels With Charley is a travelog. He wrote it after taking a three-month cross-country trip in 1960. He and his black poodle, Charley, toured the United States in a truck with a camper built onto it. Steinbeck couldn’t see everything but he wrote about his experiences in Maine, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, Oregon, California, Texas, Louisiana, and his home state, New York.

Although he took the trip to reconnect with common Americans, he spent a lot of time writing about his dog, Charley. I loved reading about his trials with the dog because I’ve got one of my own.

Steinbeck concealed his true identity from most people he met along the way so they would act naturally around him. By then he was a famous author; this was his last book. He felt out of touch with the people he was famous for writing about, and believed this was the way to revitalize his outlook on American life.

Along the way he met Canadian farm workers, motel owners, some old friends in Monterey County, California, rich Texans, and many others. He had a bit to say about politics, and provided heartfelt comments about racial unrest in the deep south. While waiting to connect with his wife who flew to Chicago to spend a few days with him, he unraveled the mystery life of a former hotel guest by examining clues left in an upscale hotel room he’d been given access to. And he spared the lives of two coyotes in the Mojave Desert.

I’m glad I took the time to read Steinbeck’s last book. I can never get enough of his writing.