Locked doors are irresistible to children, and prisons come with the best ones: a fortress in a freezing bay, a wizard fortress guarded by things that eat happiness, a desert camp where boys dig a hole a day. Kids want to know how the locks work, who got out, and whether they could have. And then there is the quieter reason a family goes looking for these books — a child who has a parent behind a visiting-room table and no idea what to say about it at school. Both readers are welcome here, and it is a relief how often the same shelf serves them: the good books on this subject are about people, not policy.
Bookroo’s collection of 112 books about prison and jail covers both halves. There are Alcatraz histories and spoon-and-raincoat escape stories, wolves phoning in their side of the case from a cell, a dog composing wildly dishonest letters from obedience school, and middle-grade novels about waiting on the outside for someone you love. Start with our twelve favorites below, then browse the picture books for read-alouds that are funnier and gentler than the subject sounds, or the chapter books for escapes, Alcatraz, and family stories that take the whole thing seriously.
