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From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

Best-selling author for adults Carl Hiaasen has taken his distinctive over-the-top portrayal of south Florida’s petty criminal low-life to a new and younger audience. Hiassen strikes just the right tone in this story of middle-schoolers fighting big business to preserve a habitat for burrowing owls. The construction site for a new Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House appears to be just another vacant lot, but a renegade adolescent known as Mullet Fingers recognizes that the area harbors underground dens for burrowing owls, which will be destroyed by development. He single-handedly attempts to sabotage the site by pulling up survey stakes, putting alligators in the port-a-potties, and letting loose a posse of cottonmouth snakes (albeit with their mouths taped shut) to delay work. He’s joined in his crusade by a recent newcomer to Florida, a lonely teenager named Roy, and Mullet Finger’s no-nonsense, soccer-playing sister Beatrice. Together they conspire to protect the owls, both by creatively disrupting construction and by raising awareness of Mother Paula’s under-handed attempt to bypass a required Environmental Impact Study. Although Mullet Finger’s acts of vandalism are illegal, his intentions are undeniably sterling, and readers cannot help but cheer him on. The kids are clever, the dialogue is witty, and almost all of the adults (with the notable exception of Chuck Muckle, Mother Paula’s sleazy company V.P.) turn out to have at least one redeeming quality. Chuck Muckle and a few minor local officials are unmasked as money-grubbing villains, and the owls are saved, in a humorous and satisfying conclusion. (Ages 11-15)

CCBC Choices 2003 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2003. Used with permission.

From Publisher's Weekly

May 17, 2004
"With a Florida setting and pro-environment, anti-development message, Hiaasen returns to familiar turf for his first novel for young readers," wrote PW
. "Several suspenseful scenes, along with dollops of humor, help make this quite a hoot indeed." Ages 10-up.

From Publisher's Weekly

September 9, 2002
Lowe's audiobook repertoire (most recently Big Mouth & Ugly Girl) grows with this unhurried, optimistic reading of bestselling author Hiaasen's debut work for young readers. Since his parents move around a lot, Roy Eberhardt is used to being the new kid at school. But when he and his family settle in Florida, being hassled by the school bully lands Roy in the middle of an ecological mystery. While taking a pummeling on the bus, Roy becomes fascinated with a boy he sees running in the street. The boy turns out to be a homeless, neglected kid who uses unorthodox tactics to save a local owl habitat from being developed as a pancake house. Roy inadvertently gets caught up in the boy's sometimes-humorous conservation efforts, with eventually positive results. With his youthful voice, Lowe again serves up a realistic portrayal of these young protagonists. The combination of a solid vocal performance and Hiaasen's stable of quirky characters will likely keep young listeners hooked, and established Hiaasen fans amused. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover.
Ages 10-up.

From Publisher's Weekly

June 24, 2002
With a Florida setting and proenvironment, antidevelopment message, Hiaasen (Sick Puppy) returns to familiar turf for his first novel for young readers. Characteristically quirky characters and comic twists will surely gain the author new fans, though their attention may wander during his narrative's intermittently protracted focus on several adults, among them a policeman and the manager of a construction site for a new franchise of a pancake restaurant chain. Both men are on a quest to discover who is sabotaging the site at night, including such pranks as uprooting survey stakes, spray-painting the police cruiser's windows while the officer sleeps within and filling the portable potties with alligators. The story's most intriguing character is the boy behind the mischief, a runaway on a mission to protect the miniature owls that live in burrows underneath the site. Roy, who has recently moved to Florida from Montana, befriends the homeless boy (nicknamed Mullet Fingers) and takes up his cause, as does the runaway's stepsister. Though readers will have few doubts about the success of the kids' campaign, several suspenseful scenes build to the denouement involving the sitcom-like unraveling of a muckity-muck at the pancake house. These, along with dollops of humor, help make the novel quite a hoot indeed. Ages 10-up.

From AudioFile Magazine

The loneliness of being the new kid in town, a mysterious boy, bullies of all ages, and protected miniature owls make for some familiar high jinks in Hiaasen's first novel for young readers. Someone has been sabotaging the site of Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House. Survey stakes get uprooted, alligators swim in Porta Potties, and water moccasins terrorize four rottweilers from hell. Chad Lowe narrates, as Roy Eberhardt, newly arrived in Florida from Montana, makes it his mission to save the owls. Lowe does wonders with the cast of mostly likable oddballs. We know how it will end, but in his inimitable fashion, Hiaasen has crafted a delicious screwball comedy for all ages--and Chad Lowe's performance is a hoot. S.J.H. 2003 YALSA Selection (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine