Talk:Hoot (novel)

Description needs to be more neutral
While I'm a fan of Hiassen, I think the summary of this book needs to be more neutral. They're not trying to "protect the environment", they're trying to take away the rights of a property owner... We need to describe what goes on here without taking (either) side


 * also needs to be more appropriate to use as an encyclopedia article. This reads too much like a fan letter. PurpleChez (talk) 20:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

not neutral writing
Check this out:

"Set in Florida, its plot is, cough cough to all intents and purposes, a toned-down version of a typical Hiaasen storyline, with a group of schoolkids battling the Establishment in order to, in their minds, protect the environment by stopping someone from being able to develop his property." i dont unders stand any thing about what nuetral even means !!!!!!!!1

Changes
I made some changes in the beginning plot summary, removing and rewriting it. I also removed an unneutral sentence at the very end. loulou 14:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Adult?
'My complaint is a small one, but a complaint nonetheless. Do you really think that this book should be called an adult novel? I'll admit that it might have some "curse words", but that doesn't mean it should be labeled adult. I think that this is more of an opinion than its category.--EdwardCullen II 04:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)'
 * This is a young adult novel (YA). Roseclearfield (talk) 19:41, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I made it way better
with my revue sorrey i can't spell —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grange123456 (talk • contribs) 03:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Hoot is a really good book
I've always loved the book "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen. He is a really good author. I like how the book shows how kids can help save endangered species and not that many kids are interesed in helping save the enviroment. Rusted Silhouette@wmconnect.com 5/1/07 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.68.248.130 (talk) 22:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

I read it
The fun part is when Dana is tied to the pole in underwear  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joao 11 1996 (talk • contribs) 22:30, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality questionable
The plot summary sounds like a bunch of crap and the description, I've read the book, and its quite a bit more subtle about the whole "fight the power" theme of what the kids did —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[Special:Contributions/21:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Plot Summary
Roy Eberhardt was sitting on the bus looking out the window. He doesn't normally look out the bus window. The only reason he was looking out the window was because Dana Matherson was holding his head up against it. Dana was the main bully of the school, and probably is about twice the size of Roy. It was a good thing that he smashed Roy’s face up against the window, because if he didn't, Roy would have never seen the running boy, who was running with no shoes on. His schoolmates tease him because of his previous life in Montana, calling him "Cowgirl" and he later becomes known as, "Tex". One day, Dana tries to strangle Roy on the bus, Roy strikes back by punching Dana in the face and breaks Dana's nose. Everyone thinks it was Roy who started the fight, so the vice-principal makes Roy write an apology letter to Dana. However, the vice-principal notices finger-shaped bruises on Roy's neck where Dana attempted to strangle him on the bus, but believes Roy's side of the story.

Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House Corporation intends to build a pancake house in Coconut Cove. The bulldozers have already been parked on the construction site, but work is delayed over and over again because of bizarre but effective acts of vandalism occur in the night. As a groundbreaking ceremony has already been scheduled and advertised, the company is eager to stop all that sabotage, and has the police, the foreman, and trained Rottweilers guarding the site.

While all this is going on, a boy called Mullet Fingers, which is the same kid Roy saw running earlier, is on the run from his dysfunctional family, living wild in the swamplands. A girl, named Beatrice, tells Roy that he is her stepbrother. Her biological mother left her father after he stopped working. He remarried to an extremely nasty woman named Lonna, who hated Mullet Fingers' strange ways and sent him off to boarding school. Instead, Mullet Fingers ran away, with his sole contact being Beatrice. Roy, curious of the boy he saw earlier (at the beginning of the story) begins investigating and, after some initial setbacks, eventually not only makes Mullet Fingers' acquaintance but also convinces him that he can be trusted.

After he gains her trust, Beatrice also helps Roy out. When Dana attempts to kill Roy in a closet after school, Beatrice saves Roy and strips Dana down to his underwear and ties him to a flag pole with his shirt. Roy attempts to make peace with Dana, but the bully does not agree. The argument ends with Dana being locked outside of his house clad in only some boxer shorts.

Roy finds out that "Mullet Fingers", is responsible for the acts of vandalism that have been committed at the construction site. His motives, however, are intended to be honorable; Mullet Fingers wants to save the burrowing owls - which are endangered and protected by the law- that live on the site from being killed when the bulldozing begin construction.

Some antics Mullet Fingers uses to delay the construction are: putting gators in the portable outhouse toilets, spray painting a sleeping police officer's windows black, and dumping decorated cottonmouths onto the construction site. Roy, after finding out about the owls, helps also. He lies to Dana and tells him that a large amount of cigarettes is hidden in the construction site. So Dana breaks into the construction site to get the cigarettes and is arrested, believed to be the vandal. A policeman is not convinced totally, however, and brings a plastic alligator to an interrogation, and Dana panics at the sight of it, proving that he could not have put the live ones in the toilet. Even so, they keep him in a juvenile detention center because of his bad record, and also because if his superiors found out that he hadn’t caught the vandal after all he would be fired after all the bad publicity he had given the local police. Roy, meanwhile, searches the Internet and finds a law saying how the burrowing owls are protected by law. Since the guards at the construction site denied any knowledge of the birds, this was enough to tell Roy that they knew all about the owls. Roy also gives Mullet Fingers a digital camera to take some pictures of the owls to prove their existence. In a current events project that same Tuesday before the opening of the pancake house on Wednesday, Roy tells his history class about the owls and how the pancake company will bury them, and encourages them to join him in protesting the next day.

Eventually, Roy and Beatrice lead a student march to the site, where they expose the company's greed and dishonesty to the entire town. Although Mullet Finger's pictures were unidentifiable, a live burrowing owl flies out, proving that owls still live in the area. Kimberly Lou Dixon, an actress who acted as the company's mascot, is disgusted with her employer's callousness and joins the demonstrators. The young people succeed in exposing the illegal acts of those in power; which include illegally removing an environmental impact statement from the official file a bribery; and, eventually, in saving the birds and their habitat. Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House is put into disgrace, and can only evade ruin by expelling the guilty employees and disavowing the plan to build. Lonna, greedy as always attempts to use her son's temporary fame to become famous herself, even trying to schedule an interview on Oprah (both fail)

Mullet Fingers, in the effort to escape his vile family situation, climbs out of a bathroom window and is accidentally mistaken for a burglar. He is shipped to the same juvenile detention center as Dana. When Dana's mother spitefully tells the police that he stole a ring from her, Mullet Fingers escapes the center using Dana and his mother as a distraction, and is never seen again by anyone except for Beatrice, who already knows were he went, but informs Roy that she made a "Blood Promise" with Mullet Fingers to not say where he went. Roy adapts to his new home slowly but willingly. At the end, Roy discovers that Mullet Finger’s real name is Napoleon Bridger Leep.
 * I'm not sure who wrote the above plot summary, but it looks like you put a lot of time into it. Would you like to try to work it in to the current plot summary? Right now the one on the page is difficult to follow and overly detailed. Roseclearfield (talk) 02:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the incoherent plot summary that was quite messed up with the one above. Cheers, Wassupwestcoast (talk) 03:50, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Settings?
What is the settings of this novel? Where EXACTLY did the story take place? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CDH31211811 (talk • contribs) 03:57, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Coconut Grove, mainly? Graham 87 15:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * were is coconut cove?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.225.32.52 (talk) 17:17, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Oops, I meant "Coconut Cove". It's a fictional town in Florida. Graham 87 07:49, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Either (Hiaasen novel) or a hatnote needed
There was a successful children's book from 1996 as well by Jane Hissey. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:58, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 18:14, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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