School Library Journal11/01/2013
Gr 5–8—Pileggi was taking a tour of the Old Idaho Penitentiary in Boise, in 1970, when she learned that its youngest prisoner was a 10-year-old convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in the late 1800s. Intrigued, she read newspaper articles and trial transcripts, writing the imagined day-to-day life of this boy. The good and the bad are told through Jake's eyes in a straightforward manner. "Bricks on the floor, three stone walls, and that too-tight-wove metal door. A cage." Yet he thinks he's dreaming when his first meal comes-beef, potatoes, beans, cabbage, and good bread-rarely has he had such good food and certainly not three times a day. Jake is befriended by fellow prisoners, a guard, and the warden; he learns to read and gets a job at a nearby farm with a family to whom he grows attached.
