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
Now, Moose plays baseball with Scout every day at lunch. Scout doesn’t say anything about the convict baseball—but Piper talks to Moose about it all the time. Moose ignores her and spends every afternoon with Natalie, looking for a ball. It’s “peaceful” being out with Natalie like this, and Moose sometimes talks to her about what’s bothering him. He always sets Natalie up where he can see her, except when he goes to the gap in the fence.
Hunting for a baseball with Natalie helps Moose and Natalie grow closer. Moose recognizes that spending time together is soothing for both of them, and they grow closer as he talks to her. However, he also moves away from her and towards adulthood during these afternoons, which the novel portrays symbolically with the gap in the fence.
Themes
Today, Moose gets off school an hour early, and Mom leaves for San Francisco as soon as he gets home. Immediately, Moose leads Natalie out. Natalie is wearing a dress meant for a child—and she looks silly in it. They come across Annie and Theresa at the parade grounds, and Moose refuses an invitation to play. He explains that he’s looking for a convict ball, and Annie asks if it’s for Piper. Fighting a smile, she says he won’t find one, as the balls don’t go over often. Moose leads Natalie on anyway and admires the new garden flowers planted in the terraces. Natalie begins gathering stones as Moose continues his search. He rips his shirt sliding back through the gap and finds five piles of sorted stones—but Natalie is missing.
Moose has given readers several clues that Natalie is older than 10, and here, he begins to take issue with Mom forcing her to look like she’s genuinely 10. Her age is getting harder to ignore, at least for Moose—which suggests, in turn, that Moose is beginning to see Natalie as grown-up, too. Finding Natalie gone is anxiety-inducing for Moose, as it suggests that she has more agency than he realized or that he’s comfortable with her having.
Themes
