Product Description

Unfortunately, Roy’s first acquaintance in Florida is Dana Matherson, a well-known bully. Then again, if Dana hadn’t been sinking his thumbs into Roy’s temples and mashing his face against the school-bus window, Roy might never have spotted the running boy. And the running boy is intriguing: he was running away from the school bus, carried no books, and–here’s the odd part–wore no shoes. Sensing a mystery, Roy sets himself on the boy’s trail. The chase introduces him to potty-trained alligators, a fake-fart champion, some burrowing owls, a renegade eco-avenger, and several extremely poisonous snakes with unnaturally sparkling tails.
Roy has most definitely arrived in Carl Hiaasen’s Florida.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1954781 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 357 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
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 as Basket Case and Sick 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.

Roy carries the story very well indeed. He's likable and persistent in the face of unexpected and challenging adventure, despite his modest size. The cause he chooses to support is eminently worthy--he weighs up the strength of his beliefs with the necessity to slightly bend the law. This is a good story with some great writing--a winning combination. (For readers aged 10 and over.) --John McLay

Books in Canada
Hoot, Carl Hiaasen's first book for younger readers is part mystery, part slapstick comedy and is a totally satisfying and truly environmentally friendly novel. On one level, it's a story about Roy Eberhardt, the new kid in this otherwise sleepy little Florida town who has caught the eye of the local bully and has to find a way of dealing with this dilemma as well as make his own place in his new community. On another, it's a richly comic farce that gives kids a chance to see the ineptitude of adults—this is shown to great effect in the bumblings of Coconut Cove's local "Public Safety Department" and the hilarious happenings at the construction site of the new Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House. But Hoot is not just pure farce—and that is what makes it such an interesting novel—it also explores the way that any number of corrupt and greedy adults view the world as theirs to plunder no matter the consequences. Most importantly, Hoot is a book about kids trying to change their world, to expose and take on corporate corruption. As Roy becomes embroiled in Mullet Fingers' and his sister Beatrice's fight to save the nests of the tiny burrowing owls who make their home on the Mother Paula's site, he realizes the power that he has despite the fact that he's a kid. Roy learns to stand up not only for himself but also for who he wants to be and for the world he wants to live in. Hiaasen delivers a powerful message in a wonderfully engaging fiction that is sure to get young readers thinking about what they can do too. Hiaasen is a straight shooter with his adult readers and he treats his younger readers with the same consideration. Here's hoping we'll hear more hoots from Hiaasen soon.
Jeffrey Canton (Books in Canada)

From Publishers Weekly
With a Florida setting and proenvironment, antidevelopment message, Hiaasen (Sick Puppy) returns to familiar turf for his first novel for young readers. Characteristically quirky characters and comic twists will surely gain the author new fans, though their attention may wander during his narrative's intermittently protracted focus on several adults, among them a policeman and the manager of a construction site for a new franchise of a pancake restaurant chain. Both men are on a quest to discover who is sabotaging the site at night, including such pranks as uprooting survey stakes, spray-painting the police cruiser's windows while the officer sleeps within and filling the portable potties with alligators. The story's most intriguing character is the boy behind the mischief, a runaway on a mission to protect the miniature owls that live in burrows underneath the site. Roy, who has recently moved to Florida from Montana, befriends the homeless boy (nicknamed Mullet Fingers) and takes up his cause, as does the runaway's stepsister. Though readers will have few doubts about the success of the kids' campaign, several suspenseful scenes build to the denouement involving the sitcom-like unraveling of a muckity-muck at the pancake house. These, along with dollops of humor, help make the novel quite a hoot indeed. Ages 10-up.
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