Al Capone Shines My Shoes Book

Moose and the cons are about to get a lot closer in this much-anticipated sequel.

It's 1935. Moose Flanagan lives on Alcatraz with his family, the other families of the guards, and a few hundred no-name hit men, con men, mad dog murderers and a handful of bank robbers too. And one of those cons has just done him a big favor.

You see, Moose has never met Al Capone, but a few weeks ago Moose wrote a letter to him asking him to use his influence to get his sister, Natalie, into a school she desperately needs in San Francisco. After Natalie got accepted, a note appeared in Moose's freshly laundered shirt that said: Done.

As this book begins, Moose discovers a new note. This one says: Your turn. Is it really from Capone? What does it mean? Moose can't risk anything that might get his dad fired. But how can he ignore Al Capone?

Publishers Weekly

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. (Sept.)