Here's the thing, see: with The Gardener of Alcatraz: A True Story, Emma Bland Smith and Jenn Ely have created this really terrific picture book biography of a crook who turned his life around. And get this: the narrator sounds like an old-movie tough guy right outta the story's setting! As the narrator puts it after the crook goes straight, "Swell!"
What happens is, after this guy Elliott Michener gets busted for counterfeiting, he's sent to Alcatraz, the roughest, toughest prison there is. At first Michener isn't sold on rehabilitation--he figures he'll break out and maybe take up counterfeiting again, or else knock off a bank. But when he finds a key in the prison yard, does he try it in every gate at the joint? Naw--he turns in the key! So the guards let Michener help with the gardening. And holy smokes, the jailbird likes the job! Sure, maybe not for the right reason at first....
With The Gardener of Alcatraz, Smith (The Pig War) has produced a humane and moving story, and Ely (If You Were a Kid Building a Pyramid) captures the emotional nub of every scene, using a gloomier palette to reflect Michener's darker days and a brighter one to reflect his expanding horizons. Back matter offers historical context (the year that Michener landed at Alcatraz--1941--is curiously missing from the main text) and discusses changing attitudes toward rehabilitation: "Today experts know that giving incarcerated people meaningful work is important and worthwhile." Swell! --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author