Chapter Book #5

Author:  Carl Hiaasen
Title:  Hoot
Illustrator:  N/A
Readability score:  Grade 6 to Grade 8
Genre:  Fiction
Subgenre:  Realistic Fiction
Theme:  Follow your heart.  Stand up for what you believe in.  Anyone can make a difference.
Primary and secondary characters:  Roy, Beatrice, Mullet Fingers, Officer Delinko, Curly, Dana, Mr. and Mrs. Eberhardt, Garrett,
Awards:  Newbery Honor 2003
Date of Publication:  2003
Publishing company:  Thorndike Press
ISBN number:  0-7862-5014-3

Hoot takes place in Coconut Cove, Florida.  Roy Eberhardt has just moved with his parents from Bozeman, Montana.  He hasn't made any friends in Coconut Cove.  He has, however, gained the attention of the biggest bully around, Dana Matherson.  On his way to school one morning, Dana came up behind Roy and pinned his head against the bus window.  That's when Roy saw a strange, barefoot boy running on the sidewalk as if his life depended on it.  Roy decided he would find out who he was.  On the same morning, Officer Delinko, a new cop, heads to a construction site for Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House.  Curly, the construction foreman for the project, is reporting a vandalism.  All of the survey stakes had been pulled up in the middle of the night.  Officer Delinko trips over a hole on the site.  Curly explains that burrowing owls live in them.  The next morning, Roy looks for the running boy on the bus.  He doesn't see him again until the next Friday.  At the very same moment, Dana comes and begins to strangle Roy.  Roy punches him in the nose and he takes off for the door of the bus.  He must catch up to the running boy.  He nearly runs over a girl at the door.  He chases the boy all the way to a golf course, where he gets knocked out by a golf ball.  At school, the principal blames him for punching Dana and he gets dismissed from the bus.  At lunch that day, a big soccer girl named Beatrice threatens Roy and tells him to mind his own business.  Little did he know that the running boy was Beatrice's brother.  Meanwhile, more mysterious things happen at the construction site.  Roy finally meets the barefoot boy when he goes to his campsite.  The boy has no home and no name.  Officer Delinko continues to work on solving the vandalism case, which has made it to the media.  Beatrice finally tells Roy that the running boy is his brother, Mullet Fingers.  Mullet Fingers is trying to save the owls on the construction site by sabotaging the construction equipment.  Roy and Beatrice begin to help.  With the help of his dad, Roy discovers that Mother Paula's did not have the permit to build on the property because the owls are protected by Florida's environmental laws.  On the day of the groundbreaking ceremony, Roy and his friends bring to light the information needed to stop the building of the Pancake House.  The owls are saved and protected by an Environmental Impact Statement.  Roy, Beatrice, and Mullet Fingers are commended throughout the nation for their heroic deeds to save the owls.

This story is an example of how following your heart can pay off.  There are several activities that I could assign to my students upon reading the book.  One activity that I would assign would be a research project in which groups of students work together to find local endangered species or animals in Tennessee that are protected under Environmental Impact Statements or similar laws.  It is important that the children are aware of the environment in which we live.  I would have another group work on a presentation about the burrowing owls in the story.  They are real owls.  I would have the students also add the other animals in the book to the presentation (alligators, mullet fish, and water moccasins).  I would also play the movie, which is based on the book.  The students would complete a writing activity in which they compare and contrast the book and the movie.  They would also answer questions like, "Did the movie follow the book closely? How so?"  "How would you have made the movie if you were the movie director?"