Hoot

Rating:
Summary: OUTSTANDING!
Review: This book is an awesome book. You can't compare it to any book. That's whats so cool about this book. Any reader will love this book! So go out and by it!


Rating:
Summary: Starts Slowly, Ends Well
Review: Hiaasen takes a while to get into the kid lit groove. The first third of the book seems a bit confused, as Hiaasen fights his urge to steer his characters into his usual adults-only mayhem. He fashions a protagonist who is unreasonably precocious and spends too much time setting up adult characters.

And then, when Roy's mother has a bed-time heart-to-heart with her son, Hiaasen finds his groove. The rest of the book flies (pardon the pun) as Hiaasen finds the right balance of madcap action for the "tween" reader.

Adults who are put off by profanity will find this an appropriate introduction to Hiaasen's sly humor and progressive outlook. And kids who can make it through the first third of the book will find thei reward in a heart-warming and hilarious epilogue.

If you read "The Lorax" to your children as toddlers, give them "Hoot" when they start reading novels. They'll love it.

Rating:
Summary: No more biting humor.
Review: Though written for a younger audience, (and nowhere was this evident when I bought it), Carl Hiaasen's newest fiction dispenses with the outrageously funny characters that first brought him to the attention of National Public Radio and thus to me: the former governor of Florida who now lived on roadkill and dashed into highway traffic in a bright yellow slicker to retrieve his dinner or the towering former biker bar bouncer who lost an arm to a barracuda and now sported an implanted weed wacker in its place.
His passion for the disappearing Florida flora and fauna is still the underlying subject of this book, but without the vividly drawn characters, this is populated with two-dimensional figures in a Carl Hiaasen-meets -the -Hardy Boys novel.

Rating:
Summary: Great for Students
Review: As a seventh-grade English Language Arts teacher, I have been using this book as part of a Read-Aloud and my students love it.... The days that I do not read it to them they are "let down." I think that the author does a great job illustrating specific writing crafts that I am trying to get my students to use.

Rating:
Summary: Owls, sparkling snakes, barefoot boys and lots of mousetraps
Review: Carl Hiaasen forges into new territory: The kid book realm. Cleaned up and devoid of ... violence or much profanity, he makes a cute, quirky book that isn't limited to just kids. If anything, Mr. Hiaasen's literary gifts are more pronounced when there are no seedy elements to distract the readers.

Roy Eberhardt recently moved from beautiful Montana to the swampy mishmash of Miami, and he's not thrilled about the change. He misses his old home, and the biggest, meanest bully of all, Dana Matherson, has taken a dislike to him. But on the bus, Roy catches a glimpse of a barefoot kid racing down the sidewalk. When he sees the boy a second time, he punches out Dana and pursues the kid (called Mullet Fingers, for a reason that will become evident late in the book).

A mystery vandal is sabotaging the site of a future pancake restaurant, pulling up stakes, sprat-painting a cop car, and setting loose a bunch of glittery cottonmouths. Things don't improve when Roy encounters the boy's sister, Beatrice, a very tall jock with muscles and teeth of steel. Beatrice warns Roy to stay away from Mullet Fingers, but Roy is already quite involved. Mullet Fingers is on a one-boy campaign to save the tiny burrowing owls that live in the construction site -- and will be buried alive in their burrows when the construction begins. Roy begins walking the line between law and outlaw, right and wrong, trying to save Mullet Fingers and the tiny owls.

Roy is the kind of kid that readers love instantly -- he's a quiet Charlie Brown who comes out of his shell for a good cause. (And he moons Dana) Mullet Fingers is a little harder to pin down, a strangely but that seems to be Hiaasen's intent. Beatrice is half-hilarious, half menacing -- the scene where she bites off part of Roy's bike tire is a scream. Dana is a pain in the backside, and readers will laugh and rejoice at his comeuppance. And Hiaasen outdoes himself with Roy's parents. He doesn't make them stupid, condescending or obtuse, but rather they trust in the big corporations a bit too much. And one of the most touching elements of this book is that Roy asks his parents for their advice, and protects his kindly mother from the knowledge of how Mullet Fingers' own mother despises him.

Unlike many other adult authors who write a book for kids, Hiaasen doesn't dumb it down. He seems to have faith that his kiddie readers can handle tales of corporate double-dealing, enviromental mandayes, and paperwork that most people never have to think about. Kooky elements like a B-movie actress, an ambitious if well-meaning cop (the one whose car was painted), a baby alligator in a porta-john and a bunch of sparkling cottonmouths with taped mouths add an element of surreality to the book.

"Hoot" is a hoot, but it's also a charmingly serious novel. Kids will like Roy and the effective but realistic tactics he uses for the owls, and adults will like the thought-provoking storyline and quirky humor. A keeper.

Rating:
Summary: Utterly predictable and soooo PC
Review: I bought this book for my 11 year old nephew, but fortunately I read it before I gave it to him. To quote "Roy" (the main character): "What a crock!" Here we have the all-too-common theme of the Eeeeevil "Big Corporation," out to rape the land and kill the tiny little creatures (as well as sell those horrible coronary artery killers known as pancakes. See how Eeeeevil they are?) We have the courageous kids, so much smarter than the dim adults and so much less corrupted by the gross avarice that drives adults to kill baby (GASP!) owls in order to make (YUCK!) money. We have (SOUND OF TRUMPETS) the Environmental Protection Agency, wielding that most sacred of modern scriptures, the (HOORAY!) Environmental Impact Statement. I will concede that most pre-teens may not know the reality of things like the Klamuth Falls water debacle, in which a thousand farmers went into financial ruin because of environmental hysteria. However, my young nephew has parents who own their own business and who are proud we live in a country that protects private property and personal effort. So I threw "Hoot" in the trash and went out and got my nephew 3 books: Biographies of Daniel Boone, Thomas Edison, and George Washington Carver. I will never buy a child a book that I haven't read myself again.

Rating:
Summary: Give a hoot!
Review: Carl Hiaasen is riding the wave of adult fiction writers down-shifting their word processors to "Kid Lit" in the wake of Harry Potter. In "Hoot," a new Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House will wipe out the habitat of cute little endangered burrowing owls who are "about as tall as a beer can" and mean no one any harm. Some Middle School kids take up the cause. The characters here aren't quite as quirky as Adult Hiaasen, but "Mullet Fingers" could be an adolescent prequel to Viet Vet/former Florida Governor Skink (*Native Tongue* etc.) Here's what this savvy kid says about his home in South Florida, which is just as applicable here in Northern Minnesota or anywhere else encroached by real estate development juggernauts: "Ever since I was little... I've been watchin' this place disappear - the piney woods, the scrub, the creeks, the glades. Even the beaches, man - they put up these giant hotels and only goober tourists are allowed. It really sucks."

"Hoot" encourages concern for the environment and social conscience. For a "Young Adult" book, there is some questionable language and a possibly non-sequitur too-detailed focus on our "only-child" hero's mother's miscarriage. As they say in the movies: "Parental discretion advised." reviewed by TundraVision

Rating:
Summary: Passes the time, but nothing else
Review: Hoot, by Carl Hiaasen, is a good book to read if you just feel like reading. However, if you feel like an intriguing plot and something that you will be unable to put down, you are looking at the wrong book.

I regret to say this, but Hoot is just an average book with the un-original story of an American boy, Roy, who moves around and who is unsettled in his school life. He is faced with problems with finding friendship and the school bully, but then Roy discovers a boy on the run, and befriends the boy's sister who is in Roy's class. Roy then gets dragged into trying to save families of owls from their home, which is being renovated to building a chain restaurant.

I don't think I have to tell you the outcome of the owls and the restaurant. To warn you now, Hoot is very predictable.
If the isn't enough, sometimes you just don't feel like you're part of the story at all. The descriptions are not good enough to be able to see what the surroundings or people are like.
If you have nothing to do, read this book. But if you have anything else to do, do that.

The blandness and un-originality of Hoot is apparent even in the first chapter. Perhaps this can be excused for this being Carl Hiaasen's first childrens novel, and hopefully he will use more creativity and excitement in his next.

Rating:
Summary: Whoot is for adults too!
Review: I read Whoot because my mom loves Carl Hiassen. When she found out that he wrote a children's book, she rushed to the phone to call the book store to save the book for me. Now she wants to read it! Whoot is about a boy named Roy who one day sees a strange running boy who has no backpack or shoes. Roy thinks he's a criminal, but he is really a boy who ran away from his house who is trying to save the burowing owls. The owls' homes will be buried by construction for a pancake house. Will the owls be buried, or will their homes survive?

Rating:
Summary: Richie's Pick's: HOOT
Review: My eyes are a little bit moist after having just finished HOOT by Carl Hiaasen. As I write this, I'm perched upon the royal blue carpeting between two of the dividers that stretch the length of a football field and herd us slowly in the direction of Jean Auel. Jean is sitting on a stool behind a table just beyond the goal line. I arrived here at the Javits Convention Center around 6:15 this morning--that's 3:15 A.M. California time, my body reminds me--in order to obtain one of the relatively limited tickets that allow entrance to this line for the purpose of receiving a smile and a signed copy of the new book from Ms. Auel. David Halberstam's line will be my next stop. But at the moment I am feeling like my best literary score of the day is the additional advance copy of HOOT that my friends at Random House are graciously permitting me to take back to California. Now, I can lend out a copy (first to my faithful webmaster) and keep another to eventually put away in my collection of the really good ones.

Yes, HOOT is one that you'll want for your collection, too.

I was just about to say that I can't wait to get home and start reading HOOT to my kids and Shari, but that wouldn't be particularly true. Thanks to another publisher friend, I am going to see Dee Dee Ramone and the Tom Tom Club perform at a party tonight, so frankly I CAN wait a little while to get back to California. But when I DO get there, you can be sure that I'm immediately sitting everyone down to share this great tale.

First, you have the owls:

"Walking back toward the patrol car, the policeman stumbled and fell down. Curley grabbed him under one arm and hoisted him to his feet.
'Stupid owls,' said Curley.
The policeman brushed the dirt and grass burrs off his uniform. 'You say owls?'
Curley gestured at a hole in the ground. It was as big around as one of Mother Paula's famous buttermilk flapjacks. A mound of loose white sand was visible at the entrance.
'That's what you tripped over,' Curley informed Officer Delinko.
'An owl lives down there?' The policeman bent down and studied the hole. 'How big are they?'
''Bout as tall as a beer can.'
'No kidding?' said Officer Delinko.
'But I ain't never seen one, officially speakin.'"

Then, you've got the bully:

"The grip on his throat tightened. He felt Dana's ashtray breath on his right ear: 'How come you ain't got your boots on today? Who ever heard of a cowgirl wearing Air Jordans?'

'They're Rebocks,' Roy squeaked."

Now, throw in the mystery kid (whose first appearances are reminiscent of Maniac Magee):

"The boy was straw-blond and wiry, and his skin was nut-brown from the sun. The expression on his face was intent and serious. He wore a faded Miami Heat basketball jersey and dirty khaki shorts, and here was the odd part: no shoes. The soles of his bare feet looked as black as barbecue coals...Because the boy kept running--past the corner, past the line of students waiting to get on the bus; past the bus itself. Roy wanted to shout, 'Hey look at that guy!' but his mouth wasn't working so well. Dana Matherson still had him from behind, pushing his face against the window."

Add in the seriously evil PR guy from the pancake house chain, the tough girl soccer star, the assortment of parents with widely varying skill levels, and the bumbling young cop. Then drop Roy, the new kid in town, into the middle of everything and you have the recipe for a book that will enchant kids of all ages. There is humor, sadness, and a touch of suspense.

What WILL happen to the owls in those holes?

In HOOT, Carl Hiaasen does an incredible job of showing the different styles of activism that different people resort to. He presents the reader with the contemporary clash of free enterprise versus global ecological issues. He has a lot to say between the lines about parenting, and he has some great insights into the methods of dealing with bullies.

I've never read his adult books, but I sure hope Hiaasen writes more children's books for my kids. HOOT is a heck of a first step into the world of children's literature.

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
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