Family Book Club: Al Capone Does My Shirts

We recently finished reading Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko for our Family Book Club. It's a fun book about a boy who grows up on Alcatraz because his dad is a prison guard there. It is based on the fact that guards families really did live on the island during the prison days in the 1930's and surrounding time period. The boy, Moose, has a sister who is autistic and they are trying to get her into a special school. We enjoyed reading it and had a fun book club night. Lexi and Zac helped me make our own board game called Escape from Alcatraz. The kids had to answer questions about the book to try and "escape" The Rock. In the end though, I stopped the game right before Lexi was about to cross in to San Francisco because.....nobody escapes Alcatraz! HaHa! I really do have fun teasing my kids every now and then!

Then we had a Lemon Cake that Drake had helped me bake that afternoon.  In the story, Natalie, the autistic sister, really liked lemon cake and could usually be pulled away from a tantrum by offering it to her.

Then we did a Christmas craft using buttons because Natalie also had a button box that she loved.  Garrett helped me get the craft items together for everyone.  We decorated foam Christmas trees with buttons and pom poms and hung them up on the mantle.

The kids also played cops and robbers with flashlights in the dark for awhile.  They came up with that idea all on their own. Any excuse to play night games! We had a fun night and, once again, I was impressed with how much the kids remembered from the book.  We will now be spending the rest of December reading Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I have found that December gets too crazy to really focus on a book, but poetry is a nice change that we can throw in there on nights that we have time. Plus, Shel Silverstein is really fun.