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| This Newberry Honor winning book paperback publication turns 12 today |
Gennifer Choldenkos newest book The forth book in her
historical fiction Al Capone series, titled Al Capone Throws Me a Curve comes
out May 1st. This latest story explores common humanity, the role of sports,
fragility, resilience, ability differences, autism, multiple Intelligence, and
adolescence, universal themes put into the context of 1936 on Alcatraz
island.
Our favorite narrator Moose is still trying to play baseball this time for his
high school, any way he can. Moose tries several things including the mysterious appearance of a prison wardens gun to his school in San Francisco and a baseball signed by Al Capone and Babe Ruth.
Moose's sister Natalie is working with her Autism, bravely making friends and improving her verbal skills, and coping with serious anxiety. Her increased social and personal skills lead to dangerous trouble for the whole Alcatraz community.
Baseball, rule breaking, convicts, anxiety, family, friends and empowerment are combined marvelously.
The story's heart which is deeply personal is covered in a warm
frosting blanket of family and includes sprinkles of forgiveness, the book is a
delicious and heart warming story of the growth and power of family.
"Don't give up on people, everybody messes up now and then."
The fourth story in the Al Capone series named Al Capone throws me a curve that comes out May 1st.
If you want to see Gennifer Choldenko live and in person, come to our July 8th event at Books Inc Burlingame.
Heres the interview:
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| Gennifer Choldenko and yours Drewly at a recent event |
In your own words please introduce your new book Al Capone Throws Me a Curve to our readers?
Moose would do almost anything to be on the high school baseball team. His older sister Natalie wants to be treated like the seventeen-year-old girl she is – not the little kid with problems her mother thinks she is. But Natalie doesn’t always understand the subtle cues of social interactions or the dangers of living on Alcatraz. What she thinks will help Moose get on the team and her father get to be warden, backfires. And when the clever, but heartless Bea Trixle gets involved, everything goes terrifyingly awry.
Why did you choose Al Capone and Alcatraz again for book 4?
I chose to write about Alcatraz and Al Capone because I like to finish what I start. I knew the end of Al Capone Does My Homework was not the end of the series. And I wanted to write the book that fit the ending I had in my head.
What Are 4 of the most important influences on book 4:
The most important influences on this book were definitely:
My sister, Gina. Gina had a severe case of what is now called Classic Autism. She was a touchstone for Natalie.
My editor, Wendy Lamb and her assistant, Dana Carey. They prodded and encouraged by equal measures, until I was able to get down on paper the book I wanted to write.
The many prisoners who did time on Alcatraz and in other maximum-security prisons. I wanted to give some sense about what it would be like to live inside the cellhouse up top. I felt like I hadn’t really done that in the other books.
The Alcatraz Alumni Association. I have been a member of the Alcatraz Alumni Association for many years. I could not have written the Tales from Alcatraz series without the help of Chuck Stucker, George DeVincenzi, Robert Luke and so many other people who spent significant time on the island because their fathers were guards, because they were guards or because they were prisoners on the island.
Your authors note before Al Capone Throws Me a Curve, you talk about your unfinished business with Moose, who is in his own way a needy child with an important perspective to difficult themes. How did you make Moose such a relatable young boy despite the time period differences?
I’d like to tell you that Moose just appeared to me one day and I began writing. But that would be a big fat lie. I struggled to find Moose. I spent months trying to capture his voice. I was intimidated by the time period – at that point in my career I had not attempted to write historical fiction. And I had never written from the POV of a boy.
What helped the most was trying to envision what my father’s voice might have been like when he was twelve. I believe your voice is formed when you are a kid. It evolves over time, and changes around the edges, but the core remains the same. What also helped was imagining how my big brother, Grey, might react to Moose’s circumstances. Grey is an extremely kind human being and I borrowed a bit of his soul for Moose.
Your series has one of the more complex characters with autism of any middle grade series. Why did you choose to involve Natalie so much in the series? What was your process for writing her into your new book in particular?
One of the reasons I wrote Al Capone Does My Shirts and the other books in the Tales from Alcatraz series is I wanted to write the stories I needed to read as a child. When I was a kid, the word autism was almost never in the press; most people had never heard of it and certainly there were no children’s books about kids with autism or siblings of kids with autism. At that time, few children received a diagnosis of autism and most who did were boys. I loved my sister deeply, but I had a lot of confusing feelings about her and about the family dynamics that swirled around her.
I read a journal entry my father wrote when I was ten. It said my oldest sister paid no attention to Gina. My brother was incredibly doting and caring toward her. But my relationship with Gina was puzzling. I would try so hard to make a connection with her and include her in my play. But then she would react in ways I didn’t know how to deal with I would get depressed and go off by myself.
We shared a room, Gina and I, and I desperately wanted to understand her. I wanted her to know that I loved her. And I wanted to know she loved me.
Explain the role of baseball on Alcatraz during the Al Capone era? Explain Moose’s obsession with baseball?
I grew up hearing Red Barber calling play-by-plays on the radio and seeing my brother and my father glued to the TV watching the game. But in doing research I discovered that baseball was even more important in the 30’s than it was when I was a kid or it is now, simply because today the world of sports and entertainment has grown exponentially. Baseball has a lot more competition now than it did then.
So yes, Moose was obsessed with baseball, like many other boys and like many of the convicts on Alcatraz. I was intrigued by the fact that the prisoners were playing baseball in the rec yard while the kids were playing on the parade grounds, a stone’s throw away. What I love about baseball is when you’re in the game, what’s important is not who you are or where you came from, but how well and how fairly you play. Baseball brings people together. It’s so much more than just a sport.
Moose and his family live very near some of the most notorious convicts ever, explain what that experience teaches moose?
I once gave a presentation about Al Capone Does My Shirts to a group of boys in Juvenile Hall. I said something about the bad guys being locked up and a kid raised his hand and said: “Excuse me, Ms. Choldenko but there are not bad guys. There are only people who made the wrong choices.” I’ll never forget that moment.
I did a lot of research into what it might be like to serve time in the big house and then be released. What would it feel like to walk out of prison after fifteen or twenty years of incarceration? I’ve talked to a number of ex-convicts who spent time on Alcatraz. One gentleman understood that he had made big mistakes and that’s why he had ended up on Alcatraz. And it was only when he changed his behavior, that he was able to alter the course of his life. Another convict I interviewed had pride in his bank-robbing profession and believed one of the unfortunate consequences of his trade was jailtime. My research on Al Capone, makes me think he did not have regrets for his truly horrifying behavior.
In other words, there is no way to say what it was like for convicts on Alcatraz, because each convict’s experience and frame of reference was different. I wanted Moose to understand that. I wanted him to see that some of the convicts were good men who made mistakes. Some of the convicts had the capacity to change. While others were deeply troubled and would continue to make the wrong decisions.
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| The fourth book in the Al Capone series comes out May 1st |
What do you want readers to come away with after reading book 4?
First and foremost, I want to entertain my readers. But I don’t want my books to be junk food. When readers are done with Al Capone Throws Me a Curve, I’d like them to think about what it means to stand up for yourself and what it means to be free. I’d like them to treat kids on the spectrum with kindness and consideration the way Moose and Passerini did.
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