MMGM - HOOT

 

Hoot

by Carl Hiaasen

Alfred A Knopf Books for Young Readers

2002 

I'll be honest, I picked this book up at a thrift store. I had heard a lot about Hoot and it was a Newberry Honor Book, so I had high expectations.

Once I was trying to see how many Newberry winners I could read. I told the librarian it would be nice if they would be shelved separate from the others so they could be found easier. The librarian told me that if they did that the kids wouldn't pick those to check out. Hmmmm

Well, this book was okay, but it took me a while to get into it. I could tell the author was used to writing adult novels, by the way he wrote this book. 

It was a fairly slow start with a lot of telling - the very thing I try not to do when I write. I even considered stopping, but I continued.

I had to get used to the way it was written - kids' scenes stopping and turning into adult scenes in the middle of the chapters. I would be engrossed in what was happening with the kids and then he would suddenly stop and go to what was happening with the adults.

Then there was this thing with the bad words. I think they could have been left out.
And, although many people describe Hoot as a laugh-out-loud book, and I love humor in a book, I was disappointed. I never once laughed out loud while reading it.

For those of you who may not have read it. Roy, the main character, just moved to Florida from Montana and he isn't very happy with the change. A bully has targeted him to pick on all the time. And I can't believe the bus driver is oblivious to all of this. And very few of the adult characters in the book could be considered good role models.

The premise of the story is that Roy, a soccer player girl and her step brother join to save cute little burrowing owls where a Pancake House is scheduled to be built. I'll let you read it to find out what happened.

I am glad I continued. After I got used to the way he was writing it, the story had me wanting to see what would happen next. To me this was an okay book, but I have read better. 

But, according to reviews online, many people really like it and you may, too.

Happy reading!

Join others reviewing middle grade books over on Always in the Middle.

What I'm Reading Wednesday

What I'm Reading Wednesday

I am reading Carl Hiaasen's, CHOMP.

The cover grabs your attention. He is also the author of HOOT, FLUSH and SCAT!  HOOT was a Newbery Honor Book.

I just started reading the book, but I think I am going to like it. You can read an excerpt of the book here, to see if you would like to read the entire book.

This is the description of it on Amazon (where it has received a total of 480 - 4 and 5 star reviews):

Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo. His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, and snappers in his backyard. The critters, he can handle. His father is the unpredictable one.

When his dad takes a job with a reality TV show called Expedition Survival!, Wahoo figures he'll have to do a bit of wrangling himself—to keep his dad from killing Derek Badger, the show's inept and egotistical star, before the shoot is over. But the job keeps getting more complicated. Derek Badger foolishly believes his own PR and insists on using wild animals for his stunts. And Wahoo's acquired a shadow named Tuna—a girl who's sporting a shiner courtesy of her father and needs a place to hide out.

They've only been on location in the Everglades for a day before Derek gets bitten by a bat and goes missing in a storm. Search parties head out and promptly get lost themselves. And then Tuna's dad shows up with a gun . . .

Sounds interesting doesn't it? And, on page 30, West Virginia is mentioned.

It has 61,057 words. The Accelerated Reader level is 5.2 and it is worth 9 points.

What are you reading?