Al Capone Does My Shirts

Today I moved to a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. I'm not the only kid who lives here. There's my sister, Natalie, except she doesn't count. And there are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cook's or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. Plus, there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don't want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to.

Gennifer Choldenko received a B.A. from Brandeis University, graduating cum laude with honors, and a B.F.A. in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design. Gennifer’s first picture book is titled Moonstruck: The True Story of the Cow Who Jumped Over the Moon. Reviewers called Moonstruck "hilarious" (School Library Journal), "hysterical, irreverent" (National Parenting Center), and "a giggle from beginning to end" (Publishers Weekly). Gennifer was the youngest in a family of four kids, where her nickname was "Snot-Nose." Her quirky sense of humor made its debut at the dinner table when Gennifer was a very little kid. After that, anything strange and funny became known as a Gennifer Joke.

Currently, she lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband and their two children. When she is not writing, she likes to draw animals at the zoo, especially crocodiles and turtles because they lie perfectly still. Notes From a Liar and Her Dog is her first novel for children.