What would it be like to live on Alcatraz Island and not be a criminal? Our narrator, Moose Flannagan has just moved to Alcatraz with his family, after his father obtained a job as the prison's electrician. He's not crazy about living on the island, even if there are other kids whose families live there too. Choldenko has succeeded in writing a great historical fiction novel for the younger set. If you think adolescence is bad, imagine if you were going through it while living there! Moose navigates through his new life with a good sense of humor, despite getting in trouble a couple times and having to miss out on weekly baseball games. He wins instant popularity by feeding fellow students stories of the convicts - most significantly, Al Capone. Moose is given the charge of taking care of Natalie every day after school. His older "little" sister is mentally retarded and his family is trying to get her into a prestigious school that should help her assimilate into the real world. As Moose spends more and more time with Natalie, he realizes what's best for her and has to stand up to his parents and tell him what he really feels. Not easy when his mother is in denial and his father is working all the time. When it seems like nothing is going to go their way, Moose sees one person as the only one who can help him . . . and he takes a big chance in finding out. At a little over two hundred pages, you can fly through this delightful novel and enjoy a different take on history.[Photo: www.vla.org]
No comments:
Post a Comment