Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Al Capone Does My Shirts, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Disability, Dignity, and Shared Humanity
Friendship and Community
Family
Growing Up and Doing the Right Thing
Summary
Analysis
It takes Moose a long time to climb the hill to the gap. He wants to go back and check on Natalie, but he sees something grayish beyond the fence—a ball. He struggles to fit through the gap, considers going back again, but then remembers Mom saying he should treat Natalie “like a regular sister.” He wouldn’t go back for a regular sister, so he shimmies under and approaches the ball. It’s not a ball; it’s a piece of cardboard. Enraged, Moose searches a few more places and then heads back to Natalie. Scout will think Moose didn’t even try if Piper finds a ball first.
As Moose approaches the “ball,” his younger (but responsible) childish self is in conflict with his more grown-up, romantically-interested self. His immense internal struggle to keep on looking for the ball highlights how difficult this transition is for him—growing up will not be an easy process.
Themes
Moose approaches Natalie, who’s still engrossed in sorting her stones—he shouldn’t have left her, but everything is fine. She says, inexplicably, “105.” She clearly doesn’t have 105 rocks and there are only a dozen or so birds around, but maybe a huge flock came and went. He asks if there were 105 birds and, annoyed, she says there are 13.
Interestingly, Moose knows that Natalie’s numbers are never random, so it should pique readers’ attention that she’s latched onto a number that seems to make no sense in context. Moose, however, brushes this off, and this choice is one the novel will return to later.
Themes
