Review of Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

It’s rare that a novel for children can have me holding my breath almost as much as I would when reading a John Grisham novel, but this book gave me a few such moments. It makes the word “autism” take on flesh in the form of sixteen-year-old Natalie, who’d been ten for several years when this book begins.

Natalie lives with her mother, father, and twelve-year-old brother Moose on Alcatraz Island when it was still a prison. Her father works for the prison. Her mother is obsessed with getting her into a school that can help her function in life. The community consists of other prison families. Moose gets off the island every day to go to school. But most afternoons when he comes home, he is responsible for Natalie’s care, and his parents think it will help Natalie if Moose takes her with him wherever he goes each afternoon. They tried to send her to the Esther P. Marinoff School, but the school  sent her home after one day, which absolutely crushed her mother’s spirits.

Everyone on the island, especially the children, fear the prision warden, who has the power to fire their fathers. His daughter, Piper, uses this fear to manipulate the other island children. Two of the warden’s rules are especially relevant in this book:

1. Don’t talk about the inmates, especially Al Capone, to those on the outside, because the warden does not want reporters bugging him all the time about any famous inmates.

2. Don’t talk to the prisoners and if you are female, dress modestly at all times — no bathing suits allowed.

Piper is probably the worst offender of the first rule, even trying to get children at school to pay to have their clothes put in with the prison families’ laundry so they can be processed by Al Capone himself. She tries to get Moose to help with this, but he refuses. Nevertheless, the children are caught and Moose happens to be with them when Piper is handing out the money to the participants because she has asked him
to bring Natalie to help divide the sum collected for distribution. (She is a whiz at math.) Like the other children, Moose is called to see the warden (rather like being sent to the principal’s office), and and all four children involved are threatened with having their fathers fired if anything like this ever happens again. The warden even sends his daughter Piper to live in San Francisco with her grandmother for two
months to punish her for her part in the scheme.

It’s the violation of the second rule, however, that brings about the climax of the book. On the first day of school Moose makes one friend — Scout — who includes him in the baseball game after school. But when Moose has to miss a game that was rescheduled for him because his mother’s schedule suddenly changed and he had to watch Natalie, Scout drops him. To try and get back into Scout’s good graces, Moose
is determined to find one of the baseballs the prisoners have hit over the fence. Piper has told Scout they are easy to find and are hit outside all the time. Scout wants one.

Naturally, when Moose goes to find a baseball, Natalie has to come along. This not only leads to Natalie breaking the second rule, but it also scares Moose to death knowing that Natalie has been alone and holding hands with one of the inmates who was allowed outside the walls for gardening work. Moose had left her for a few minutes out of sight while he was hunting the ball. When he finds Natalie, she gives
him a ball. And he finally realizes that #105 gave it to her. And he has no idea what else might have happened. Now he finally is as determined as his mom to get Natalie to the Esther P. Marinoff School, just to get her off the island before something tragic happens. I won’t say much more about the plot, since I hope you will read the book.

The meat of this book for me was watching Moose relate to his sister Natalie. His mother had said to treat her like he would a normal sister, but she wasn’t normal and everyone on the island knew it. She liked to sit and arrange buttons and mostly tune out everything else. She liked to eat lemon cake. Sometimes her eyes would get vacant and she’d disappear into herself. And sometimes when she was upset she would throw a fit, scream, curl up into a ball, or just sit and rock. She loved numbers and would sometimes answer questions that involved numbers better than anyone else could. Moose was good with her and probably spent more time with her than anyone else.

After the incident of Natalie’s interaction with #105, Moose has to tell his parents what happened because he is afraid for Nat’s safety. It would appear she wants to meet #105 again.  Mooses knows his mother will have to stop pretending Nat is still ten instead of 16 and take proper precautions. In a last ditch attempt to help get Nat off
the island, Moose finally finds a way to enlist the help of Al Capone himself, with Piper’s help.

Please read the book. If you know of a family with an autistic child, be sure and let them know about the book — especially if there are other older children in the family. It is readily available in most libraries.

When You Read Aloud, Ham it Up!

When I was teaching English and elementary grades, I had many opportunities to hear students practicing for oral interpretation events in upcoming speech competitions. I listened to  “Binker” by A.A. Milne,  “The Black Cat” by Edgar A. Poe, and many other dramatic readings of stories and poems more times than I can count. All of the
students did their best to bring their readings to life.

Do you do the same when you read to your children? Do you just read the story? Or do you “ham it up” by changing your voice as you become each character? Can your child tell by just your voice whether you are a frightened little pig or the Big Bad Wolf? Can you be a convincing troll as the billy goats try cross the bridge?

Cover of Who is the Beast?

When you narrate a book without much conversation, do you pay attention to the punctuation? Do you read faster or slower, emphasize  words, and adjust the volume of your voice to create a mood? In a book like Who is the Beast? by Keith Baker (you will find this book among those at the end of the link), can you put some fear into the lines “The beast, the beast! I must turn back. I see his stripes, yellow and black.” Can you put a sense of puzzlement into the lines “Who is the beast? Who can it be? I see no beast. I just see me.” as the tiger wonders whom everyone is afraid of?

Some books beg you to read them aloud, and as you play with the words and chants, the child will want to join in. In Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag, your children will easily pick up the refrain of “Hundreds of cats, Thousands of cats, Millions and billions and trillions of cats.” The Gingerbread Man, The Three Little Kittens, The House that Jack Built, Love You Forever, Green Eggs and Ham, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, and probably hundreds of other picture books feature these repetitive lines. Ham them up!

The Dr. Seuss books, Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner, Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler by Esphyr Slobodkina, the Steven Kellogg version of Chicken Little, and more poems than I have room to mention all lend themselves to playing with words and sounds. Children love sounds, so make the most of alliteration, assonance, rhythm, and rhyming words  — with some funny faces when appropriate — and you will delight your children and probably have some fun yourself. Allow yourself a second childhood when reading and ditch your inhibitions.

If you practice these hints, not only will you be showing your child how to read with expression, you will also have a wonderful time. You may even discover you have a flair for drama buried inside. Let it out! Ham it up! And do it often!

Most books referred to above can be found at your local library. You can read the reviews of many of them and see the cover art on my web site.

How to Make the Most of Your Child’s School Book Fair

A Single Section of One of My Book Fairs

As a seller of books for children and educators, I have gone to many California schools  to supply their book fairs. During this time I’ve had plenty of opportunity to watch the teachers, parents, and children who some in to look for books. In most schools, each class comes in once a day with the teacher. Sometimes parents of children come in with their class to assist. Children often come in on their own during recess and before and after school. I’d like to share some of what I’ve seen and a few suggestions that might make the experience more enriching for everyone.

One reason schools have book fairs is to expose children to a wide variety of books with the hope they will find at least one they will want to own. Most suppliers try to have a variety of books at every price range so that everyone can afford at least one book. Some children approach books fairs with anticipation, eager to find a book or books to take home. Those children are, of course, the most fun to serve. Most of them are readers. Some children come (mostly those of middle school age) because they have to, and these have little interest in books. They stand around and talk to each other, ignoring the books. Some children come so they can get out of class for a few minutes. These last two groups are a challenge, but as the book fair lady I always had a few minutes at the beginning of each class visit to give students the “lay of the land” and try to introduce books that might catch their interest with instructions on how to find them.

After this, some students usually go immediately to the fiction or a special nonfiction section of interest. Some quietly consult each other for recommendations. Some talk to their teachers or parents and some ask me for help and advice. Once I had a group of seventh grade girls discover the Amelia Bedelia books they’d enjoyed in first grade. Would you believe they sat in a circle and read them aloud to each other? Some students want to buy the books their teachers have introduced in class. I love watching this, and I love trying to find just the right books for a student who seeks my help.

But not all the experiences are happy. Most of the unhappy experiences happen in preschool or the very early grades, and they happen because parents make what I believe are mistakes. If you are the parent of a preschool or early grade child, please consider these suggestions to make the book fair a happier experience for everyone involved.

First, if you have a very young child, either at a preschool book fair or accompanying you to an older child’s book fair, try to remember that you are the adult and your child really has no idea what is good for him in the book department. He sees only a cover.  He might like a book just because it’s red or has a picture of a dog on it, even if it’s Lassie Come Home or a math dictionary. You know your child’s interests. So please don’t follow your two or three-year old around and ask her what she wants. Nine times out of ten she will pick something totally inappropriate, and when you nix her choice she will get very unhappy and will then not want anything you pick out. Then you might get angry and say something like “You can’t have a book then.” And your child will cry more. You will both leave iin a huff and be miserable for a while.

This can easily be prevented with a bit of forethought. If you can, preview the book fair before your child sees it. Try to find several books that would be appropriate for your child and dovetail with your child’s interest or are similar to books she’s enjoyed in the past. Which books could you read over and over to your child and still enjoy them? If you can’t preview the book fair, try the library. Read a lot of books and see which ones you think might stand the test of being read multiple times. Check them out and read them to  your child. Then if you find a book your child has enjoyed, she will probably want to own it.  (Unfortunately many of the books you both enjoy might be out of print and unavailable at the book fair, so do try to preview the book fair. Or, click here to see some wonderful books I used to have at my book fairs for ideas). When you have found a group of books you are happy with, present them to your child and ask her to choose one. She still chooses, but what she chooses will be appropriate. If, on the other hand, she has independently found another book within her age and interest level, keep an open mind. Ask why she wants it. Listen. If there is any way you can feel okay with that book, buy it. But also buy one or two of the ones you like (or more if you can afford them). She will eventually want you to read them to her even if she didn’t pick them out. She’s just not going to admit that now. Tomorrow she will probably forget she didn’t choose them.

One scene I’ve had to watch too many times is parents with one idea about what is a proper book and a child with a different idea. I’m not talking about moral issues and values here, but about genres. Many young children, especially boys, simply prefer nonfiction. They want to read books that will answer their questions about the world they live in. They want books about snakes, frogs, fighter planes, classic cars, science experiments, computers, sports, or whatever their current interest is. If Mom gave them $20 and didn’t come to the book fair, they would walk out with as many books on snakes as they could find. But when Mom comes, and they bring her that really cool book on snakes or rockets or the first moon walk, she sometimes says, “No. I want you to get a story.”

Now I love well-written picture books and novels as well as anyone and love to share my favorites in read-aloud sessions. But the first book I bought my adopted son was on his favorite subject — something I knew nothing about — big rigs. He lived for big rigs. So I special-ordered the book he’d loved  when we checked it out at the library and I got it for him for Christmas. He spent hours with that book before he could even read. I was always able to read Jason the stories I loved, and he learned to enjoy them, too. But when he could chose, he chose nonfiction, and those choices not only helped him learn to appreciate books, they prepared him to later read other kinds of books. Your son will grow into Bill Peet books, Mike Mulligan, or Homer Price soon enough. So please, Mom, let him buy the snake book at the book fair and you buy a story that’s just a bit above his reading level to read at an opportune moment at home. Make sure it’s a book you really like, and I’m quite sure he will learn to like it, too. And he may discover he likes stories after all — especially if you can find one about a snake.

Is What Children Read Important, or Is It Enough That They Are Reading?

Today in the WSJ I read the following by Ann Patchett: I am a firm believer in the fact that it isn’t so much what you read that counts, it’s that you read….I’m all for reading bad books because I consider them to be a gateway drug. People who read bad books now may or may not read better books in the future. People who read nothing now will read nothing in the future.

Should we apply that to children? Many teachers seem to think so. The general opinion seems to be that it doesn’t matter what a child reads, as long as he or she reads.  I agree only if parents and teachers have been striving since a children’s earliest years to  expose children to good literature through regular reading aloud. What and how a parent  chooses to read aloud  to a child greatly influences that  child’s own later choices.

I was fortunate in that my mother read to me often in response to my begging, and, of course, the begging was due to my earlier experiences of hearing the stories she chose for me. I also had two elderly ladies, both teachers with no children of their own, who were like adopted grandparents to me. They loved to buy me picture books. I still have some of them, and their choices helped develop my reading tastes.  By the time I was three years old, I had taught myself to read with a little help from my parents. I was dying to read stories without having to wait for someone to have some extra time to read to me. When someone finally gave me a very easy book with very large print and just a few words, I soon had it memorized because I’d heard it so often. Then I could go back on my own and study the words. I guess I was learning sight words without knowing it. Pretty soon I really could read the words and know which was which.

Somehow I also learned about letters. I would ask my dad about the ones in the headlines he was reading in the newspaper, and he always took the time to answer my questions. Someone probably also told me that the letters made sounds. The words I learned in the first book, I See a Kitty, which I can still recite over sixty years later, were like the Rosetta Stone to me. I could recognize them in other books being read to me, and then, after hearing the stories, I could go through the books on my own, looking for the familiar words and remembering some of the new ones through the context and illustration hints. This was how my reading vocabulary grew.

I See a Kitty didn’t have much plot.  Had it been my first book to hear I might have lost interest. But I had also heard Belinda and Father Christmas, Amanda (see my review of this here),  Marshmallow, by Clare Newberry, and many other books I’ve lost track of now.  So when I See a Kitty arrived, I already knew that learning to read was worthwhile, and I seemed to know that particular book was the key to my learning to read. From then on I read anything I could get my hands on, but the adults in my life made sure I could only get my hands on books that would feed my imagination, expose me to good art, and model the appropriate use of the English language. These books used complete sentences.  They helped me to reach for the sky instead of plunging me into verbal garbage.

In the late 1940’s when this was happening, there were not so many picture books available to children as today. We had the Little Golden Books. So I cut my teeth on The Taxi that Hurried; The Poky Little Puppy; The Saggy, Baggy Elephant; The Tawny, Scrawny Lion, and all the others.  Some of my favorites have titles I can’t remember, but all of these books introduced exciting new sounds and words — descriptive words  such as baggy, tawny, poky, scrawny, twinkly, drowsily, bashfully, lopsided– and an assortment of verbs to add to my conversations: yawn, stretch, tiptoe, prance, gobble and many more.  I was introduced to manners by Mr. Do and Mr. Don’t, who were created by Virginia Parkinson and Lowell Grant, a claytoonist in 1943.

By the time I was six I was an avid reader. On the Christmas of that year my Cousin Edna and Auntie Lucile gave me six Thornton Burgess books and I had devoured them in a week. I learned that toads can sing and  have beautiful eyes. I learned why the other animals respected Jimmy Skunk and didn’t mess with him. I also  learned about nature and human nature by meeting Sammy Jay, Chatterer the Red Squirrel, Old Mr. Toad, Reddy Fox, and the other inhabitants of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows.  The adults in my life learned that the way to my heart was to give me more and more books in the series.  And as I read each new book, my reading fluency improved.

After that, I met Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, Maida, and the other popular series available at the time. They were not great literature, but neither were they pure fluff. They, too, helped develop fluency.  My favorite of these series was Maida, and my favorite in that series was Maida’s Little School – perhaps my first introduction to home schooling.

I have lost track of where my hungry mind went next. I remember the Bible-themed biographical fiction of Gladys Malvern. I unfortunately did not meet C.S. Lewis or Tolkien until I was a college student working in my local library.

Today parents and teachers are faced with an overwhelming variety of books when choosing reading material to read aloud or have around the house.  Some of it is excellent, some so-so, and some are uncreative combinations of words with wonderful pictures. Just as parents go through their children’s Halloween candy, they should also approach the varied books on the library and bookstore shelves.  Ditch what looks dangerous and issue the rest of children’s choices with moderation. You don’t have to read everything a child chooses. A little fluff won’t hurt your child anymore than an occasional candy bar or soft drink. But first children need to develop a taste for the milk, meat, and veggies of the book world — the books that will feed their imaginations, model the variety to be had in the words and phrases  of the English language, and introduce the kind of characters you’d like to have  play with your children.

When a child reads, he is entertaining the characters of a book, and if those characters are rude and disrespectful to others, that behavior will begin to seem “cool.” Real children can be engaging without constant disruptive or rude behavior. I’m not suggesting that only children too good to be true are suitable protagonists. Nick in Frindle and Dave and Lynsey in No Talking — both by Andrew Clements — are leaders of their peers, but they are also thoughtful and able to relate respectfully to adults.  Imperfect children also visit Narnia, but we can see they do have a sense of right and wrong. Compare them to Ivy and Bean, who seem totally self-centered and think nothing of lying, talking back, and being downright mean to siblings. Which of these children do you hope your child will most be like?

Ivy and Bean are popular with today’s children and on the reading lists in many classrooms. Your children will probably meet them if their friends do. But you don’t have to be the one to introduce them.  Read them something more worthwhile that’s a bit above their reading — but not interest — level. Read them the Chronicles of Narnia, Homer Price, Soup, Little Britches, Anne of Green Gables, whatever is age appropriate. I have a list of suggestions for various ages on my web site.  Your list might be different. But do read enough current children’s literature and interesting books for all ages to be able to make your own list of what you don’t want your children to miss, and you’ll probably discover there’s hardly enough time to get through those.  Explain there are many kinds of treasure, and books are one kind. Explain that you want to share the book treasure you have found that he might not find on his own, just as you introduced foods that have become his favorites he didn’t know about before.

In the early years, when you are still able, you can help your child cultivate a taste for the best books by choosing only the best to read aloud, at least most of the time. When you go to the library, choose books together. Your time is limited, so make it quality time. Take a book you really enjoy and read it with expression, using  many voices, to your child as you cuddle up on the sofa together. Talk about the pictures and discuss the characters as you would friends. Did they make wise decisions? What do you think they will do next? Do you think they might do something differently if they could go back in time? Whom do you like most? Why?  Did you dislike a character? Why? Which storybook character would you most like to meet in real life? Pretty soon, these discussions will come naturally as your child also asks you questions.

Your child will go through phases of reading what’s popular with his or her friends. Be sure and read some of these yourself for the purposes of conversation, because you do want to meet your child’s book friends who influence him. But continue to share your book treasure even after your child can read for himself. Share your thoughts on your individual reading with each other as another way of understanding each other. Then you will have a common frame of reference when you need to find outside examples of ways to solve problems or getting along with people. If you have exposed your children to genuine book treasures, they will soon learn that all that glitters is not gold. They will learn to discern for themselves what’s most worth reading. It doesn’t have to be a case of children reading bad books  or reading nothing — not if you start developing a healthy book appetite in your children early enough.

Follow me on Twitter.

Choosing the Best Children’s Books, Part 1

Yesterday while at the library searching the shelves for  a list of picture books, I was talking to the children’s librarian about a picture book I loved – Over the Steamy Swamp by Paul Geraghty.  I told her how I laughed over the pictures and found it such a wonderful book for illustrating the food chain.  She wasn’t familiar with it, but she then pulled out another book which she thought would be similar — Wait! I Want to Tell You a Story, by Tom Willans. So I brought it home to read.

I was quite disappointed.  First, the illustrations weren’t as funny as in Over the Steamy Swamp. But that would have been okay if the language was as vivid. In Over the Steamy Swamp, one mosquito is flying over the swamp, unaware that she is being watched by a greedy dragonfly, who is too interested to notice that he, in turn, is being watched by a famished frog, and so on up the food chain to the peckish fish, the heron, the starving snake, the craving crocodile, the hostile hunter, and the ravenous lion. Paul Geraghty’s text is simple and reminiscent of  The House that Jack Built in its repetitive style. But it’s his pictures that make the book so funny. These animals have facial expressions you won’t ever forget — especially when the book reaches its climax. After the lion’s great, big, ravenous nose is bitten by the mosquito, to say he is surprised and upset is an understatement. Suddenly, everyone in the food chain hears the lion’s yowl and looks backwards and sees what’s been about to eat him.  Not only is the art work bold and expressive, but the text will teach some great adjectives, adverbs, and verbs.

In comparison, Wait! I Want to Tell You a Story, though entertaining, has less educational value.  Although a child may learn the names of some animals — muskrat, tiger, frog, shark, lizard, snake, fly, spider, and crocodile — the interesting adjectives are missing. Although both books have repetition, the repeated phrases in Wait! I Want to Tell You a Story consist mainly of the title itself followed by “Okay, said the (name of animal), “but make it quick!” This book begins with a muskrat sitting quietly in a tree, when a tiger comes upon him and informs him, “I’m going to eat you, little muskrat.”

The clever muskrat exclaims, “Wait! I want to tell you a story.” The story consists of other animals about to be eaten by something bigger, and each begs, “Wait! I want to tell you a story.”

Each predator replies, “Okay, but make it quick.” This works until the spider says, “I’m going to eat you little fly.” But the spider does not want to hear the fly’s story, and eats the fly. (This is all part of the muskrat’s story.)

As the tiger is about to eat the muskrat, just as the spider ate the fly, the muskrat shouts, “Wait! There’s more… and he tells how the lizard ate the spider, the snake the lizard, the frog the snake, and the shark the frog. The tiger gets curious and asks what happened next, and the muskrat said “The crocodile ate the tiger.” About that time the tiger discovers the very real crocodile, who then snaps up the tiger as the muskrat escapes. (The picture shows the tigers tail dangling from the crocodile’s mouth.)

Whereas both books do illustrate the food chain, in Over the Steamy Swamp the most violent moment is when the mosquito stings the lion’s very sensitive nose.  Everyone gets scared, but no one gets eaten. I think this story is also easier to follow, since there is no story within a story to be confusing.

In Wait! I Want to Tell You a Story it is sometimes hard to tell the story from the real events. There are no interesting words describing the animals, and the repetition, instead of being an exact recitation all the exciting phrases in a chain, one word — the name of the animal talking — is always different.  That makes it harder for children to chant along with you as you read to them.

I hope our library actually does have Over the Steamy Swamp in her library to recommend to children, and so she will have an alternative to recommending  something which I believe is a bit inferior in its use of language, repetition, and illustrations.  There are so many books in the library to choose from, but some of the best choices aren’t there. A child may judge a book by its cover, but when adults choose a story to read aloud, I think they should choose the story that most effectively uses new words to build vocabulary while entertaining the ear,  the eye, and the imagination. Wait!…. will add few exiting new words to a young reader’s vocabulary, and although it might have some striking illustrations, there is not much to feed the imagination. What happens just happens. In Over the Steamy Swamp, the illustrations have the reader anticipating what he expects to happen and then just as he expects all the animals to start eating each other, the plot twists and every one except the lion is left unharmed. The lion is left with just  a sore nose. It’s less violent and more fun. It’s a shame it’s out of print. Maybe your library will be lucky enough to  have a copy.

Second thought: After writing this, I showed Wait! I Want to Tell You a Story to my husband, and he thought it was very clever. The “telling a story to keep from being killed” technique has a long history, after all.  This story does have entertainment value and would still be fun to read aloud, since it does lend itself to dramatic interpretation. It would be easy to ham it up.

Follow me on Twitter.