[AnAmericanMother]

If this is the book I think it is, the whole joke is that the kid believes that his family is involved with the Mob. Not that they really are.

It's more of a riff on kids imagining things and the consequences thereof (like Harriet the Spy or Ramona and Beezus).

So this may just be hyperventilation by those ready to take offense . . . which actually was the point of the book.