Told you I'd catch up 8^). I'm "early" even...

This week, I've been reading HOOT by Carl Hiaasen - and yes, I'm a geek: I downloaded it for $3.99 from Amazon.com. Anyway, Hiaasen's not normally a "young fiction" writer, but I liked his first attempt, which I found out about when shopping the kids' aisles at Barnes & Noble with my son, Trace. He's not quite ready for it - too long, no pictures, a couple of words we'd rather him not "get" yet - but I think he'll enjoy it later on.

It's the story of Roy, a middle schooler who's the "new kid" again, this time in Coconut Grove, FL. While the school bully is whalloping him one morning (first pages were a grabber - made me wish I was that age again, reading books like this and SUPERFUDGE), he spots a boy running through the neighborhood barefooted. The adventure includes cottonmouths with painted sparkles on their tails, a construction site for a pancake house, environmentally protected burrowing owls, and the school bully - dumb as a rock and too ignorant to know it.

Good story, and the ending didn't wrap up too quick either, which is usually the case in some of these "kid adventure" novels. I'd recommend it to any of you old foiges out there who need to just lighten up a little, dangling your feet into the water off the rotting hull of a crab boat in the everglades.

Why'd I finish "early" this week? Got some thick books to finish that'll take way more time, so I'll start on the next one tomorrow.
- posted by Rick @ 13:07