Al Capone Does My Shirts

As a special education major I am very passionate about how people with disabilities are represented in novels. After reading Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Goldenko, I was upset about how Natalie’s behavior was not explained as being autistic. Since Goldenko was trying to be authentic to the time period of 1935, where autism had yet to be diagnosed, she chose not to explain her disability. Even in the author note, she explained Natalie has someone who displayed autistic tendencies not actually being autistic.

As someone who understands the negative impact of labeling, I am concerned because of the negative stereotypes that could arise from this novel about children who are “different”. I fear children may look at someone as “different” rather than recognizing their disability after reading this novel. I believe this novel could have been a perfect opportunity to explain autism rather than just describing autistic tendencies. Since Natalie’s disability is never explained in the novel, the people in the novel looked at her as “different”. As someone who advocates for children with disabilities to be mainstreamed in to society, I worry because Goldenko chose a time period where people were not accepting of children with disabilities. While writing my paper, I struggled questioning the text because I already had developed my opinion on the topic. Since I believe questioning the author’s chose of the time period of the novel, I persevered. However, subsequently I struggled to show both perspectives of the topic.