After reading Al Capone Does My Shirts and a couple of the articles from the course-pack I became very interested in the idea of Blaska's Collection. First of all, I liked how she chose to not isolate her collection on its own shelf. She chose her books and then divided them in libraries based on other content that didn't focus on the disability of the book's characters. I think this is an excellent idea. Any child (with or without a disability) could be searching for a book related topic and come across one in Blaska's collection and not only be educated on its topic but also on a small subset of multicultural literature.I began to wonder if Al Capone Does My Shirts would fit the criteria for the collection. I believe that Al Capone Does My Shirts falls into the category of books with characters whose disabilities may be integral or peripheral to the plot, but which are not stories about the disabilities. In Al Capone Does My Shirts, we are introduced to Natalie as a child who is different, but her actual condition is never actually stated. After reading the author's note I found out that Natalie's condition was a form of Autism but in the time period that the book was set in, Autism was not yet a known diagnosis. The category I believe the book falls in is underrepresented according to Blaska.
After searching the SCSU Juvenile a couple of times, trying a couple of different things, I did not find the book. A couple of questions popped up in my head though. Is the collection that Blaska has compiled strictly children's books? Is Al Capone Does My Shirts too recent to be in the collection yet. I'm not really sure but I would love to find out more about this topic. I agree with the article by Sandra Williams et. al. that children begin to and should learn about their likenesses to others at a young age. A collection like Blaska's could be very useful in any school library and should go far beyond the use of just research for SCSU's education program as I'm sure it does.
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