Review: Charming Hiassen children's book
By L.D. Meagher
CNN
(CNN) -- Kids and crime -- it's a combination that often leads to tragedy. And, occasionally, to comedy.
"Hoot," a new Carl Hiassen book for children, takes a look at the direction lawbreaking can take a child in a distinctly Hiassen way.
Besides being intended for a younger audience, all the vintage Hiaasen elements are on display -- the quirky characters, the cock-eyed scheme that leads them to the nervous edge of disaster, and everything culminating at last in a measure of justice.
In this case, the protagonist, a fish-out-of-water middle schooler named Roy, gets dragged into a bizarre plot for a good cause -- saving some endangered birds at a construction site.
The kid behind the plan, known mostly as Mullet Fingers, is something of a wild child, living in the Florida swamps, coming and going as he pleases. His stepsister, the oversized Beatrice, is Roy's classmate.
They are a mismatched, thoroughly unlikely trio, locked in a struggle with a huge corporation. The results are delightful.
