Hoot

The best children's books always have hopeless, hapless, ineffectual adults in them. There's an anarchy in really good children's fiction that comes from putting the well-balanced, badly behaved child characters at the centre, making sense of a world that the grown-ups have mismanaged. Crime writer Carl Hiaasen's first novel for children, Hoot, is no exception. There are lumbering, beer-guzzling, white-trash parents, useless policemen who get fooled into thinking it's still night because someone has painted their car windows black and heads of multinational fast-food companies, who think nothing of crushing the nests of cute burrowing owls.

Cute burrowing owls – that’s what this book is really about. It’s a shame, because I was enjoying all of the anarchy and adolescent criminality leading up to the novel's eventual eco-friendly climax. So while the over-earnest cause and all the hullabaloo over saving the cute burrowing owls is a let-down, there is still much to enjoy elsewhere in the book.

Hiaasen's writing has a terse and witty turn that suits his central characters. Roy Eberhardt is new to Florida and he is pitched into a world of school bullies, ignorant teachers and a mysterious, bare-footed boy who has ran away from home. He is being bullied because he doesn't fit in.

But Roy’s no pushover – he’s resilient and lashes back. He also pals up with Beatrice Leep, the hardest girl in the school. She's another outcast who, at one point, manages to bite a sizeable chunk out of one of Roy's bike tyres. She also turns out to be the mysterious, bare-footed boy's sister. When Roy befriends her, he finds that the boy is known only as Mullet Fingers and has ran away because his parents don’t want him. It's this older boy who draws Roy into the business with the cute burrowing owls.

This enterprise brings the kids into contact with the night-watchmen, foremen and policemen of the novel: principally Officer Delinko, who dreams of promotion and Leroy ‘Curly’ Branitt, who sweats like "an Arkansas hog" and has to contend with baby alligators sneaking into his portaloos.

Every character leaps off the page at us, leaving us with the urge to spend more time around them. I also like the fact that there are no easy answers for Mullet Fingers, who quietly walks away at the end, having shown Roy that he, too, can adapt to his new environment.

Hoot is ideal reading for young readers aged 10-15. They will find a compelling hero in Roy Eberhardt and cheer for him throughout the story.