Hoot

by Carl Hiaasen (Author)

Product details

Paperback: 292 pages

Age Range: 10 years and up

Publisher: Random House USA Inc; Reprint edition (Dec. 2005)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0440419395

ISBN-13: 978-0440419396

Product Dimensions:13.3 x 1.8 x 19.4 cm

Product description

Everybody loves Mother Paula's pancakes. Everybody, that is, except the colony of cute but endangered owls that live on the building site of the new restaurant. Can the awkward new kid and his feral friend prank the pancake people out of town? Or is the owls' fate cemented in pancake batter?

"A wonderful tour de-force." --The Boston Globe

"A rollicking, righteous story." --The Miami Herald

"Yes, itis a hoot."--The Washington Post

Review

Hoot, Carl Hiaasen's debut novel for younger readers is a very special treat indeed. The writing is exceptionally good, and the characters extremely quirky and well realised. It's incredibly readable despite a story premise that is not sparklingly original. But no matter, there's an engaging "feel-good" vibe running through the whole book.

The setting, as with Hiaasen's crime thrillers for adults such asBasket Case andSick Puppy, is sunny Florida and the heat, swamps, dust and pancakes all contribute to the authentic atmosphere of the book. His favourite environmental theme is here too, as is the thoroughly watertight plotting. There's an engaging mystery set up on the very first page and it builds nicely with more twists and turns as the story unfolds--all of them reassuringly tied up come the final pages.

Roy Eberhardt's story begins when he is being mashed up against the window of the school bus by bully Dana Matherson. He spots an athletic bare-footed boy running away from the bus and wonders where he is going. Further investigations, after he has unwisely smashed Dana's nose in to get away from him, leads Roy into the middle of a battle between a green-minded local runaway and the proposed opening of a pancake restaurant. The development threatens the habitat of a burrowing-owl colony and it's an issue that several people in the community have differing views upon--not all of them legal.