Al Capone Does My Homework (Tales from Alcatraz)

Al Capone Does My Homework keeps up the suspense of what characters Moose, Natalie, Piper - the warden's daughter, and others are up to now, a bit older. All three books which include Al Capone Does My Shirts and Al Capone Shines My Shoes are great for upper elementary (gr.3) through adulthood. Choldenko has done an amazing job of research and writing to make this great historical fiction with humor and suspense. Readers will learn much about real life for families that worked and lived on Alcatraz Island. All three books are fabulous at keeping kids interested in the story and they can earn AR points…a great bonus for students.

Our son greatly enjoys these books! He's read all of them. He likes the setting, Alcatraz, and the constant action. We had a hard getting him to read independently before we discovered these. But we were all disappointed to see cursing in this book. Jesus, and Christ, should not be used to curse in children's books, and it's very offensive to Christians. Our son scratches these out when he finds them so he can enjoy the story.

My son blew through this book series. He is not a big reader, but he was hooked and as soon as he finished the first one he asked if we could pick up the other two. He finished each book within a day, he spent all day reading! He did mention a few parts of the book where there was mild violence, and obviously it has criminals in the book, so I wouldn't recommend it for any kids that are younger than Jr High age.

I haven't read the book myself, but I due to other reviews I ordered this for my son. He isn't much of a reader and only got through the 1st book. After little use from my son, I have added them to my school library. It's only been a month in my library and I don't have anyone checking them out. This might be a book I need to read and tell the kids about.

I started reading this series on the recommendation of a nine year old super reader. She was right; the first two Al Capone books were five star winners. This one didn't live up to my expectations. In the afterword, the author says she had planned to write Al Capone Is My Librarian, but that one didn't work out, and so she wrote this instead. To me, it feels like her deadline was upon her, and she just threw this together. All of the old characters are there--Moose, Natalie, Annie, Jimmy, Piper, and Theresa, but the feeling is different. Moose's apartment catches fire while he is babysitting Natalie. When some of the residents try to pin the fire on Natalie, Moose and the gang set out to find out who really set the fire. They try various tricks to investigate. However, in the end they don't discover anything, and the mystery is solved when the official report comes out and says _______ did it. However, there is no explanation of who investigated for the official report. How they found out _____ did it, or why ______ did it. Also, Natalie partially overcomes her autism in a very medically unlikely way that was hard to swallow. The atmosphere of this book was just completely different. The prison and the convicts are just in the background, instead of being a vital part of the story. Perhaps this is nitpicky, but the language used by the characters in not from the 1930s. Kids in the 30s were not saying, "that's so lame." Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading this book up until the end when it all just didn't come together in a satisfactory conclusion.

I loved this book as well as the other two. All three were very interesting and engaging to read. I would totally recommend this to any children ages 11 and up because the books do have some older content.

I was afraid the quality of the books in this series might grow thin, but Ms. Choldenko kept my interest as "Moose" and his friends and family dealt with the depression, autism, and an island full of the worst criminals in the country. I'm looking forward to another book or two. I don't believe I will ever be too old for these books.

Al Capone Does my Homework is a great book. I loved it and i thought that characters really shine out. I think the plot of a boy living on Alcatraz is a great one and provides of lot of different story lines. Gennifer, Please write another book!

My 11yr old son really liked this book.