Hoot is an exceptional book with a respectable message. While I was reading it I was thinking it's okay, that's interesting, hmmm, aha, oh, ect. But what I never thought was wow!, cool, haha, weird, oh no! and so on. I felt like the author lacked passion, the comedy was juvenile, and the drama unrealistic. When I was done reading I was actually a little relieved it was over! That has never happened to me before. So read the book if you are a great Hiaasen fan, or 8 and under, but otherwise set the book down; walk away with your hands raised; and forget about the whole crazy idea of reading it. Cause honestly, it just ain't too special.

For the legion of Hiaasen fans out there, 'Hoot' is pure Hiaasen but without the raunchiness and ribald humor. It is more whimsical than funny, its plot rather obvious and ultra-wholesome, but it's a very enjoyable read nonetheless. Hiaasen transforms himself into a young teen who, with other rascals his age, fight corporate America from building upon land where nesting ground owls call home. These kids pull all sorts of tricks to defeat the wicked and inept adults. Although this book is clearly targeted to the junior high school set, and I think it makes a wonderful read for boys and girls, it's the sort of read adults can enjoy especially if they don't want to think too hard. You will never confuse 'Hoot' with works by Leo Tolstoy or Henry James.


Bottom line: lighthearted and politically correct.

The story is divided into three main parts. This gives the reader different points of view from each character. The main part is about Roy Eberhardt and his friends "Mullet Fingers", and his stepsister Beatrice. The main part focuses on their efforts to try and save the owls' homes from getting bulldozed to make way for a construction. The second is about Officer David Delinko, who is one of the Officers investigating the sabotage acts on the construction site. He was caught sleeping during his early morning patrol once and was nearly fired. Now, with his job on the line he basically thought about nothing else but getting his job done. But when he sees the Burrowing Owls and slowly thinks about what will happen to them, he slowly has a change of heart towards the end of the book. The third part is of the construction Foreman Leroy "Curly" Branitt who also has his job on the line now that the construction was two weeks late. Despite his efforts to guard the construction site, the site is continually sabotaged and gets fired in the end. In the last part he doesn't join Roy and the rest of the crowd to protect the owls, but refuses to take any orders from his boss.

Overall I'd say this is a great book with its unpredictable and hilarious characters. Aside from being funny you could learn something too. I noticed that Hiaasen writes mostly about environmental problems. This book illustrates how animals are affected when we destroy their home for the sake of money. Nobody likes seeing their home destroyed. How would we feel if someone showed up on our homes and told us that our house was going to get bulldozed? In the words of Calvin and Hobbes: "How would humans feel if animals bulldozed a suburb and put in new TREES?"

Carl Hiaasen never disappoints when it comes to witty stories and charming characters. In this first attempt at fiction for young readers he lives up to his reputation. Roy has just started middle school in Florida after moving from Montana with his family - against his wishes. He is being beaten up by the school bully and is having a hard time fitting in. But he becomes entangled in an environmental battle when a chain pancake restaurant wants to build a new pancake house on a location that houses unique and rare owls. Roy and his tenuous friends take on a battle that may be bigger than they realize. Roy must find a way to follow his heart without breaking the law in protest.

Hiaasen has a real way with his characters. They are people you love and get to know through the pages of the story. There is almost always some sort of environmental twist and, in some ways, it is like beating a dead horse. But the writing is always hilarious and entertaining until the last page. Readers, both young and old, will enjoy this effort.

I must buy this what appears to be a piece of propagandistic crap because my kid's teacher decreed that he must read this trash and he's got no choice, because he's going to be tested on it.

I made my 11 yr. old aware of his teacher's secret agenda and he fully understands it. He's not going to fall for this. We read together the great one-star reviews here and we both laughed. It's probably a funny book but the author should be ashamed that he, a great environmentalist, is causing the death of all these trees as they are turning into 'Hoots'. If he really cared about the environment he would have issued his trash only in e-Book format.

The story begins when the main character, Ron, moves to yet another new town, new school, no friends situation. He tries to make friends and is intrigued by a "running boy" who doesn't seem to go to school. Ron succeeds in meeting up with the boy who he thinks is up to no good.



Throughout getting to know the "running boy" and his step-sister, Ron finds out they are animals rights' activist trying to save some baby owls. The only problem is...they don't do this in the conventional way most protestors do.



You must read this book and find out about all the adventures that the 3 teens go on just to save these cute little owls. It is a quick read that is quite the page-turner. You'll learn about friendship and loyalty while you read about their crazy journey to make a difference.



I read it aloud to my 5th grade class at school. Noone wanted me to stop at the end of each chapter! Some of the kids actually purchased their own copy and read ahead of the class. That's saying what a great book it is too!!!

got this as a summer reading book and passed the entry test at school on this year--great deal and was in excellent shape--thanks

Roy is pretty new to his Florida town. His father is in the government law enforcement agency and he and his family move around a lot. He isn't surprised when a bully on his bus, Dana, chooses to harass him. But Dana's harassment is a blessing in disguise--while Dana is shoving his head against the window of the bus, he sees a boy who looks to be about his age running barefoot through the yards near the school bus. Roy becomes determined in two ways: he is not going to let Dana bully him forever and he is going to figure out what is going on with the barefoot boy.

Both of these goals are more difficult than Roy originally thought. Even though he punches Dana, he still isn't left alone. And once he starts getting close to finding out who the barefoot boy is, an intimidating older girl named Beatrice starts beating up on him almost as much as Dana. What is going on?

Soon Roy becomes even more interested in the barefoot boy, especially when it becomes obvious he can't reason with Dana. But the boy is remaining very secretive. Roy begins to suspect the barefoot boy might have something to do with the ongoing vandalism that is stopping the pancake house chain from breaking ground in a nearby vacant lot.

I liked the friendship that sprung up between Roy and Beatrice, and I liked the relationship between Beatrice and the barefoot boy. I liked what happened at the end of the book to the barefoot boy, and I really liked the fact that this story of the vacant lot was told both from the point of view of Roy and from the point of view of the police officer protecting the lot.

I thought Roy's character was incredibly arrogant about everything, though, which made him a much less appealing and sympathetic character.

Just off the moving truck from Montana, Roy Eberhardt is about to start at Trace Middle School down in Coconut Grove, Florida. The new kid in town. Again. And he has new kid syndome bad -- eating lunch by himself, no friends, and the subject of the school bully's free time enjoyment. Things leap from ordinary to extra-O one day when Dana Matherson is beating the loose change out of him on the bus. Roy happens to look out the window and see a strange boy running almost as fast as the bus.

Why isn't the boy going to school? Why is he barefoot? And how is he running so fast?

Roy's quest to find out the identity of this mysterious boy leads him to cross paths with several interesting characters in the process, many of which are adults -- A few police officers, security guards for Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House, the tallest, toughest girl at school, Beatrice, and a nest of burrowing owls at the corner of East Oriole Avenue. This intersection of characters drops Roy into the center of a plot to keep Mother Paula's from building their new restaurant on the site at East Oriole. We can't have them burrying those owls now, can we? Uprooted survey stakes, baby alligators in the portapotties, spraypainted and jawtied cottonmouth snakes on the site, and spraypainted cop car windows are just the start. Something has to be done to defend the owls, and somebody has to do it.

Carl Hiassen's first book for young adults, HOOT seems it will be around for a long time. It's environmental focus and clear prose make it easy to recommend to young readers. And with the movie having already hit the theaters a while back, I wouldn't be surprised if this book makes its way into school classrooms at some point.

-- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

The reviews are numerous on this tale, but I'll add my brief thoughts.

My 12 year old son read the novel first and he thoroughly enjoyed the novel. Then he asked me to read it. I have to say at first I was skeptical, but I value Carl Hiaasen commitment to the environmental efforts in Florida. Development along our coastal shores has often been allowed to flourish without restraints, allowing degradation of our already fragile ecology.
Hiaasen in his own small way is trying to preserve that wonderful state of Florida for future generations of people and of course the owl. So, to honor my son's request and Hiaasen's nature role, I read it over the course of the next two days.
Overall, I thought the novel was an excellent read, of course not on an adult level but it still kept my interest as I followed Roy, the boy from Montana as he discovers the vast beauty of Florida and also the invasion of those nasty developers. No need at this point to recap the story again. It's a super book for young adults and worthy of your attention.

For your consideration there is another outstanding author that writes for young adults on serious issues; Robert L. Saunders. His novels Tommytown and the sequel The Boys From Tommytown are exceptional, and exciting great reads. Check them out. You'll be glad you did.

Ill admit, when I first looked at this book, I honestly thought it was going to be rather boring. There was no description of the boook on the back so I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Hoot is about a boy who moves from Montana, to Florida. As you can imagine, it is very different in these two places. The boy's name is Roy. He goes to Trace Middle School and doesn't really have any friends. One day on the way to school, Roy was riding the school bus. While the school bully was pesturing Roy, Roy saw a kid running down the sidewalk with no shoes. Roy figured that this boy was just on his way to a school bus stop and was running late. Since that day, Roy was very interested in this Running Kid. As he was getting off the bus one afternoon he ran right smack into a girl and almost knocked her over, he didn't realize that she was probably 2 times his size and could crush him if she really wanted to. The next day at school, the girl he knocked into went up to Roy and made it pretty clear that Roy should never bump into her again. Roy found out that her name was Beatrice. So he asked Beatrice if she knew anything about the mysterious running boy that he was seeing everyday on the school bus. Beatrice threatened him and told him to never ask about him again. This just made Roy even more curious so he followed the running boy one day. From then on, Roy made new friends, and started to learn that you shouldn't bite off more then you can chew.

Hoot was written by Carl Hiaasen. It was a novel about a boy named Roy Eberhardt, a new kid that just moved from the mountains. He meets a bully named Dana MAtherson and sees a running boy out the window of a school bus while this large "boy" Dana was smashing his head into the glass. Roy became curious about this boy and there starts his adventure. He meets this odd boy's step sister named Beatrice Leep, they soon become friends. The running boys nickname in this story is Mullet Fingers because he can catch a mullet with his bare hands. It seems that the running boy just wants to help owls buried in dens near a new construction site of a Mother Paula's Pancake House. To find out what happens to the Mother Paula's Pancake House and what happens to Roy's problems with Dana Matherson you need to read the rest of this book, which I really recommend for any middle kid.>>>>JESSE THOMPSON's REview....7C ESCS

Owls are the important issue in this book. But most importantly it's the story of how Roy, Beatrice and Mullet Fingers try to change the minds of Mother Paula's Pancake House and learn to stand up for the little things.

But Roy also has another problem. The school bully Dana Matherson. Who insists on beating up kids, but has a challenge with Roy. Carl Hiaasen has also written Flush for young adults. He wrote Sick Puppy, Skinny Dip, Stormy Weather, Lucky You and many other adult books.

I recommend this book for young adults between ten and thirteen. I also recommend this book to anyone that loves environmental books and heartwarming stories. This book also teaches young readers to never give up and to persevere.

-Austin K

"Hoot" could have been a really fine story of a boy's coming of age, facing an obstacle that pits life's lesson against life's lesson, right against wrong, moral against legal. As it turned out, Hiaasen just didn't carry his vehicle particularly deftly. The characters are paper-thin: frankly, we just don't give a HOOT about them. Roy is dull and predictable; the police are run-of-the-mill buffoons; and, as for the mysterious, barefooted Mullet Fingers, I couldn't care whether he lacerated both plantae on one of those new onion slicer gadgets. I wish I had taken a "pass" rather than invested three hundred pages in this trivium.

Roy Eberhardt is a new kid from Montana who moved to Florida. One day Roy was getting beat up on the bus by a bully named Dana Matherson. Dana slammed his head against the window and Roy notices a boy running really fast with no shoes on. After building a friendship with Beatrice Leep an athletic soccer player from school, together they help the running boy, Mullet Fingers, Beatrice's step-brother. He vandalizes the future Mother Paula's pancake house ground site because he wants to save the protected Burrowing owls that live in the ground. Officer Delinko is trying to stop Mullet Fingers from doing the vandalism, but he does not know who it is. Will Roy, Beatrice, and Mullet Fingers out smart the cop and save the owls?
I think Hoot is a great book for people looking for adventure. This book keeps you on the edge of your chair, but make sure you don't fall off. Hoot teaches you about the environment and friendship.

-Andrew

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen
An overly long, but well-written (style, challenging and modern vocabulary) story of a kid, Roy, newly arrived in Florida, and his friendship with bully Beatrice and her step-brother Mullet Fingers. The themes of Capitalism vs. the environment, along with a good touch of civil disobedience, are appropriate and perfect themes for young teenagers' (with those beautifully over-developed senses of justice and righteousness). It has a great message: you can believe in something, you have the power to do something about the problems in this world. Unfortunately, great themes can't really hold a book together that has flat characters and a thin plot. Grade: B-

I already don't like language that is not appropriate for adults to speak and so much more when a child speaks obsenities. I bought this book for my children after watching the movie. It was very disappointing as far as having to listen to foul language. We would have liked it without it!

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen
An overly long, but well-written (style, challenging and modern vocabulary) story of a kid, Roy, newly arrived in Florida, and his friendship with bully Beatrice and her step-brother Mullet Fingers. The themes of Capitalism vs. the environment, along with a good touch of civil disobedience, are appropriate and perfect themes for young teenagers' (with those beautifully over-developed senses of justice and righteousness). It has a great message: you can believe in something, you have the power to do something about the problems in this world. Unfortunately, great themes can't really hold a book together that has flat characters and a thin plot. Grade: B-