Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko received the Newbery Honor and is a great read. Moose Flanagan, the main character, is 12-years old. It is 1935, and Moose and his family have just moved to Alcatraz Island. Alcatraz is where the world's worst criminals go to prison. It is located in the middle of the San Francisco Bay in California. You can get there only by boat, and it is inescapable - a very important detail for the criminals who live there.
On Alcatraz, Moose meets Piper Williams, the warden's daughter. Piper gets into trouble a lot. Moose is a responsible kid, but he gets roped into Piper's search for Al Capone, the world's worst criminal who used to live at Alcatraz. The book is called Al Capone Does My Shirts because in prison prisoners have jobs and one of Al Capone's jobs was to do the laundry.
