Al Capone Does My Shirts
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50 free Al Capone Does My Shirts trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Al Capone Does My Shirts drops a twelve-year-old boy onto the most famous prison island in America and asks him to get on with ordinary life: a new school, a ball game he keeps missing, a warden's daughter with a talent for trouble, and a family that revolves around Natalie. Moose Flanagan tells it all himself, and his voice is funny, fed up and loyal in about equal measure, which is a big part of why the novel is read in so many classrooms. This quiz walks through the whole book. Expect questions on the move to Alcatraz, the island kids and their schemes, the rules the warden lays down, Natalie's setbacks and breakthroughs, and the risky favor Moose asks for near the end. A handful look outside the story, at the real gangster and the real island behind it, and at how the book came to be written and what it went on to win. It works as an end-of-book review, a reading check for a class or book club, or a way to see how much stuck. The first questions are the gentlest and the later ones reward close readers. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which crime earned the real Al Capone of Al Capone Does My Shirts an eleven-year federal prison term?
Tax evasion
Tax evasion brought Capone down in 1931, when a jury convicted him on five counts. He reached Alcatraz in August 1934, only months before Moose's family arrives.
Q 02In Al Capone Does My Shirts, what sets off the metal detector when Al Capone's mother comes to visit?
Her corset
Her corset trips the alarm, and the search that follows rattles the old woman so badly that she sails back without seeing her son. Moose feels awful for her.
Q 03At the end of Al Capone Does My Shirts, what does Moose find tucked inside a freshly laundered shirt?
A one-word note
A one-word note is all Moose finds, the only reply he ever gets to his secret letter. The novel never says outright who wrote it.
Q 04The real Al Capone of Al Capone Does My Shirts played which instrument in the Alcatraz prison band?
Banjo
Banjo was Capone's instrument in the Rock Islanders, a band of inmates that gave Sunday concerts for the other prisoners. Good behavior earned him the spot.
Q 05In Al Capone Does My Shirts, what does Natalie Flanagan keep in a treasured box and endlessly rearrange?
Buttons
Buttons are Natalie's prized possession, and she knows each one so well that she can tell at a glance which is missing. Taking the box away sets off her worst tantrums.
Q 06In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which convict's number does Natalie keep repeating near the rec yard?
105
105 is the number on the back of a trusted convict who befriends Natalie and hands over the stray baseball Moose has been hunting for. Moose is terrified to find them together.
Q 07Which nickname of Al Capone appears in the title of chapter fifteen of Al Capone Does My Shirts?
Scarface
Scarface came from three knife slashes to the left side of Capone's face, and he loathed the name. In that chapter Moose watches a line of convicts climb the steps and picks out the gangster.
Q 08In Al Capone Does My Shirts, what does Moose's smuggled letter ask Al Capone for?
A school place for Natalie
A school place for Natalie is all Moose asks for, hoping the gangster's connections can sway the Esther P. Marinoff School after it turns her down a second time.
Q 09In Al Capone Does My Shirts, how does a frightened Moose sleep on his first night beside the prison?
Fully dressed
Fully dressed is how Moose goes to bed, ready to run if a convict gets into the apartment. He wakes the next morning still in his clothes.
Q 10In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which treat does Natalie ask for every day but rarely get?
Lemon cake
Lemon cake is Natalie's daily request, so Mrs. Flanagan bakes one as a send-off on the morning she leaves for boarding school. The author's website even shares a recipe.
Q 11In Al Capone Does My Shirts, Natalie's condition is never named, but what does the author call it today?
Autism
Autism was not a diagnosis families were given in 1935, so the Flanagans chase one supposed cure after another, from heat treatments to a special boarding school.
Q 12In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which California beach city do the Flanagans leave behind for Alcatraz?
Santa Monica
Santa Monica is the home Moose misses, along with his best friend Pete. The novel's author was born in the same city.
Q 13In Al Capone Does My Shirts, Moose's dad works as a prison guard and in which other trade?
Electrician
Electrician is Mr. Flanagan's real trade, but work was so scarce in the 1930s that he takes on guard shifts as well. Moose complains that he is hardly ever home.
Q 21Which author of Notes from a Liar and Her Dog went on to write Al Capone Does My Shirts?
Gennifer Choldenko
Gennifer Choldenko sold her first manuscript at thirty-three, and this was her second novel for middle-grade readers. It later grew into a whole series set on the island.
Q 22Al Capone Does My Shirts was named an honor book for which top American children's literature prize?
The Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal committee picked the novel as an honor book in 2005, and it went on to spend more than six months on the New York Times bestseller list.
Q 23Which era is the backdrop of Al Capone Does My Shirts, explaining why Mr. Flanagan takes two jobs?
The Great Depression
Q 14In Al Capone Does My Shirts, what is the real first name of the narrator everyone calls Moose?
Matthew
Matthew became Moose when he was five and Natalie gave him the nickname. He was tiny then, but by twelve he stands taller than his dad.
Q 15In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which new friend at Moose's San Francisco school invites him to play ball?
Scout
Scout is the first friend Moose makes at school, and the after-school game is the one place he feels free of worries about home. The friendship cools when Moose has to stop playing.
Q 16In Al Capone Does My Shirts, on which day is the weekly ball game Moose joins at his new school?
Monday
Monday is game day, which turns into a sore point once Moose has to mind Natalie every afternoon. A later chapter title grumbles that it never rains on that day.
Q 17In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which job of his mom's leaves Moose minding Natalie after school?
Teaching piano
Teaching piano in the city helps pay for Natalie's new specialist, but the lessons fall in the afternoons, so Moose has to give up his after-school games.
Q 18In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which secret about Natalie does Moose finally admit while walking Piper home?
Her actual age
Her actual age is sixteen, though Mrs. Flanagan has told everyone ten for years, fearing nobody will help a disabled adult. Piper says the island kids had already guessed.
Q 19In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which trick of his mom's does Moose use to calm Natalie's worst tantrum?
Rolling her in a rug
Rolling her in a rug calms Natalie until her body stops fighting. Afterward she speaks in full for once, asking to go outside.
Q 20Which genre best describes the novel Al Capone Does My Shirts?
Historical fiction
Historical fiction blends invented characters with a real past: the Flanagans are made up, but the island prison was real, and an afterword sorts fact from invention.
The Great Depression made work so scarce that an island full of convicts counts as a lucky break. Moose's dad warns that if he loses the post, the family has nowhere to go.
Q 24Al Capone Does My Shirts is told from which narrative point of view?
First person
First person keeps readers inside Moose's head, so they never learn more than he does about what goes on behind the cell house walls. It also leaves the ending a puzzle.
Q 25In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which neighbor knocks on the Flanagans' door and takes Moose on a tour of Alcatraz?
Theresa
Theresa is only seven, yet she takes charge from the moment she appears, reeling off the famous prisoners and their crimes as they walk.
Q 26In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which building is the first stop on Moose's tour of Alcatraz?
The morgue
The morgue comes first because, as Moose's young guide explains, the kids are forbidden to talk to living prisoners but nobody minds about dead ones.
Q 27In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which nickname for Alcatraz is the title of the first chapter?
Devil's Island
Devil's Island heads chapter one, where Moose spends his first uneasy night. Wire reports were using a similar label when Capone himself arrived there in 1934.
Q 28In Al Capone Does My Shirts, what does Piper tell a guard the bulging laundry bags on the ferry are for?
A science project
A science project is Piper's breezy lie when an off-duty guard named Trixle asks why the kids are hauling big sacks of washing to school.
Q 29In Al Capone Does My Shirts, why are Piper's customers let down when the convict laundry comes back?
Everything looks ordinary
Everything looks ordinary, with nothing to show that a famous gangster ever touched the washing, so most of the kids say they will not bother again.
Q 30In Al Capone Does My Shirts, which relative takes Piper in after the laundry scheme unravels?
Her grandmother
Her grandmother has Piper for several weeks, and though Piper insists she chose to go, Annie suspects it is a punishment. She is back by late March with a new scheme.