Friendship-My Genre Project

Dear Reader,

    The theme for the book Al Capone Does My Shirts is friendship. The reason that I chose this for my theme is because in the beginning of the story the main character Moose has to move to an island called Alcatraz because his dad has just got a job there as an electrician and now he is forced to make new friends. This is where friendship comes into play because he meets a lot of new kids on this island. He meets Piper who is the warden’s daughter. Then he meets a girl named Theresa and her brother Jimmy. Jimmy loves trying to build new machines and Theresa likes to play with Moose’s sister Natalie who is mentally challenged. Then there is another girl named Annie. Then when he goes to his new school he goes to school with Piper and when he first goes he shows up to class late and the teacher is kind of rude to him. After this he meets a kid named Scout who is a pretty cool kid. The reason why Moose likes him so much is because he plays baseball and that’s the sport that Moose loves to play. Back on Alcatraz no body plays baseball so he can no longer play like he used to be able to back in San Francisco with his friend Pete. As the story goes on Scout invites Moose to come and play baseball with him and some other kids after school every Monday. This makes Moose happy because he is tired of living on the island and not having friends who play baseball. This makes Scout pretty much his best friend because he is the only kid now that Moose knows that actually likes to play. As they play he also gets to meet more kids that he starts playing baseball with on Monday. He also meets a convict which at first he doesn’t like because he thinks that he is trying to rape his sister, but after he realizes that he isn’t trying to do that convict 105 helps Moose get his letter to Al Capone that helps his sister get into a mentally challenged school that his mother has been trying to get her into for the longest time but never could. This in the end kind of makes Al Capone a new friend of Moose as well. This is why I picked friendship as the theme of the book I read.

"True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost."
- Charles Caleb Colton

Dear Journal,

    Today was a good day. I just got to the island of Alcatraz and I didn’t think that I would like it here but I am actually really starting to like it. I met some other kids that live here and they all seem really cool. The only bad thing is that none of them really like or can play baseball and that’s my favorite sport. Im hoping that at my new school there will be some kids that like to play because if not its really going to suck. But the kids that live here are cool. One of them is the wardens daughter so you know she’s gotta be miss no it all. She’s already talking about how she has talked to Al Capone which she thinks that I actually believe her parents would let her talk to a convict. She also says she has caught a baseball that he hit over the fence to them one day but none of the other kids have mentioned it. The only bad thing is she is kinda cute and it makes me mad because she thinks she knows it all but yet she is cute. I will be writing more tomorrow to tell how my first day of school went.

"My friends are my estate."
- Emily Dickinson

Dear Moose,

    I heard you have been looking for one of those convicts baseball’s that get hit over the wall when we play. I think we might be able to work something out with you helping me get out of here. If you somehow help me get out of this place and escape I will get you the baseball for your friend and I will also get one for you so you both have one. All you have to do is come down to the same part of the fence that you and Natalie have been coming down to the past couple days and there will be all the baseballs you want. I have been watching you looking so hard for one and I felt kind of bad for you. You thought that nobody could see you down there but the truth is I saw you two down there everyday. So if you want those baseballs then write back to this letter saying you are in and we will make a plan.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

"To be depressed is to be lonely; to have a friend is to be happy..."
- Guido

  

Dear Moose,

    Thanks for getting that convict baseball for me. It really means a lot because ever since you and Piper started telling us those stories about how the convicts hit them over the wall I have been wanting one really badly. Now that I have one we can use it when we play at lunch or after school. It’s going to be sweet playing baseball with a ball that Al Capone and some other convicts have used. It must have taken you forever to find one because I know those things don’t just come over the fence every day. And about how I said you can’t play on my team anymore, I was only upset that day because you said that we could play on Tuesday’s but then you said you could only play at lunch and I kind of lost my temper. So for that I am sorry and I want you to know I didn’t mean it.

Sincerely,

Scout

"Friends are the most important ingredient in this recipe of life."
- (sent by Dior Yamasaki)

"A friend is one who walks in when others walk out"
-Walter Winchell

REFLECTION
 For the first genre I chose to do a journal entry because I did one talking about how he just spent his first day on the island and he actually like’s the kid’s that are there. My theme was friendship so that’s why I chose to make a journal about how he just met new friends. The genre that I did was a ransom note from the infamous Al Capone because in the story Al and Moose never really become friends because Al Capone is in prison but Moose writes him a letter asking him if he could get his sister into a special education school that would help his sister. At the end of the story Al writes back a letter but all it says is “done”. This shows that if Al didn’t like Moose then he wouldn’t of got his sister into the school but he did like him so he did the kid a favor. Another genre I did was a wanted poster of Al Capone because he was a big gangster and was in the mob and probably the dangerous man in all of Chicago. The poster said that if anyone a\had any information to contact the number to get him off the streets. This guy had lots of money but it was from drug dealing and killing other people that didn’t pay him for the drugs on time. That last thing that I did for one of my genre’s was a thank you note from one of Moose’s friends he met at his new school. In the story Moose was trying to find a baseball that the convicts had hit over the wall and he did this for days and days just so that he could make his new friend happy. So I did a thank you letter from Scout saying thanks for getting him the ball and that he had to have gone through a whole lot of trouble to get it. While I was doing this project I never came across any difficulties because the project was all self explanatory and we had a paper that told us everything we need to do. I think that these types of projects are boring to me personally because I don’t like to read in the first place so in order to be able to do the project you have to read the book first.

WORKS CITED

 

"The Friendship Page: Friendship Quotes: General." The Friendship Page ..for Every Friendship! 21 June 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. <http://www.friendship.com.au/quotes/quofri.html>.