Book Review -- Hoot

Originally appeared in Haruah on 03 May 2006 in One for the Book.

Hoot
by Carl Hiaasen
published by Alfred A. Knopf
New York, 2002
ISBN 0-440-41939-5

Carl Hiaasen brings his sense of humor to a young audience in Hoot, a delightful novel filled with quirky characters and their sometimes zany, sometimes sensible antics. Set in Florida, the book is a light comedy with a mystery centered around endangered owls and a national chain of fictional pancake houses.

Roy Eberhardt, the new kid in town, is being squished by the local bully, when he sees a boy running barefoot alongside the school bus. The boy veers away from the bus, clearly not going to school, and Roy's curiosity is piqued. He waits several days until he sees the boy again, then jumps off the bus and runs after him. What follows is a series of events in which he outwits the bully, solves the mystery of the truant boy, and exposes criminal doings at a construction site, while making new friends and adjusting to his new home.

There were two things I particularly liked about Hoot. The first one, and the big one for me, is the portrayal of the main character and his family. Roy is a good kid, who loves his parents and wants to please them, and he is normal. His parents are both alive, married to each other, and normal. When Roy has a problem, he talks to his parents. They listen to him and he listens to their advice. In true kid fashion, he doesn't share everything with them, he doesn't follow their advice to the letter, and he doesn't behave perfectly, but he does try to do the right thing within the limits his parents have defined for him.

The second thing I liked may be considered a bit of a spoiler for the ending, so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to know. Roy solves the central problem of the book by thinking the problem through and using legal means to prove his case to his parents and enlisting their support. No calling the bad guys and having them meet him in a dark alley. No elaborate plans involving booby traps. This brought the story into the real world for me. A middle-school kid could not take on a corporation in the real world. He would need to recruit adults to his cause, and that is what Roy Eberhardt does.

Hoot is a Newbery Honor winner and a New York Times bestseller. A movie version is due to be released in theaters in May. Carl Hiaasen has written many novels about ecological problems in Florida and the offbeat characters who solve them, though this was his first written for a young audience. He has since written a second novel also aimed at ages ten and up called Flush.

I highly recommend this book for the younger readers in your life. Or read it yourself. It's a hoot.