Choldenko, Gennifer. Al Capone does my shirts.

Penguin, Putnam. 240p. c2004. 0-399-23861. $15.99. J

Jobs are hard to come by in 1935, so Moose's father doesn't hesitate to move his family to Alcatraz when he gets work as a guard there. Moose, age 12, is far from pleased, though. His friends and baseball team are back in San Francisco, his father works long hours, and when his mother takes a job too he is put in charge of minding his sister Natalie. Natalie is older than he is, but she is autistic, and she can be very difficult to deal with at times because of her obsessive behavior and temper tantrums. Meanwhile, Moose meets the warden's attractive but trouble-seeking daughter, Piper. He learns about the island and the prisoners, and reluctantly becomes involved in Piper's schemes, such as charging classmates for the opportunity to have their laundry done by the inmates--hence the title. Al Capone features briefly as a minor character, and in desperation Moose writes to him to ask him to use his influence to gain Natalie a place at a special school, a long-held dream of his mother's.

Rather than a novel of gangsters, then, as some might think from the title, this is a coming-of-age tale about a boy dealing with his autistic sister, albeit in an unusual setting--YAs hoping for gory details of criminal and prison life will have to go elsewhere. Choldenko, author of Notes From a Liar and Her Dog, offers a sensitive portrait of autism and how it affects a family, and in a author's note at the end she discusses her research about life on Alcatraz and on autism, and mentions that her own sister has autism. An affecting novel. Paula Rohrlick, KLIATT