Hoot

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2002

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-7

Chapters 8-16

Chapter 17-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Handling Problems Alone

Middle school books nearly always address the challenges of growing up, and Hoot follows this pattern. The book features a protagonist, Roy, who confronts difficult and sometimes dangerous situations with little help from the adults around him. He uses his wits, a practical approach to problem-solving, and a brave fatalism to overcome his cruel opponents by getting them to demonstrate their unlawful behavior in public.

Roy brings a well-honed experience with problem-solving to his new home in Florida. Always the new kid at school, he has developed a thick skin: He is used to tough kids who test him and students who shun him. For tougher problems, like how to avoid getting beat up, Roy thinks carefully and invents solutions that turn the tables on his opponents.

Roy’s first dilemma is that he must attend school but doing so risks his health because he is threatened by an older student, Dana. Fortunately, “Dana was just a big stupid bully” (29), which gives Roy an advantage. Roy maneuvers Dana into getting himself arrested for breaking into the Mother Paula’s construction trailer in search of cigarettes. This neatly solves the problem, and it temporarily takes construction manager Curly and policeman Delinko off the scent of the real vandal, Mullet.

To help Mullet save the endangered owls, Roy needs to take effective action that does not get him arrested—he cannot bear the idea of his mother’s suffering if he gets jailed. He solves this dilemma by attacking the problem from three sides, all of them legal. He researches the Mother Paula environmental impact report, arranges a public protest at the restaurant’s groundbreaking ceremony, and loans a camera to Mullet so he can take a picture that proves the owls nest on the construction lot.

Two of these, the research and the protest, work beautifully. The document search proves the corporation lied about the owls, and the protest embarrasses the company and shows that the community will stand against it. The photo presentation fails, but it gives Mullet time to perform his last stunt, which ends with an owl perched on his head and victory for the protesters.

If the story has a moral, it is that smart thinking can overcome threats and lies and that people do not have to sacrifice themselves for a great cause if they can get their opponents to self-destruct instead.

Adjusting to a New Place

Roy misses his old home in Montana. He thinks Florida is boring by comparison. Over the course of the story, Roy finds reasons to appreciate his new state, and he takes deliberate steps to make himself feel more at home.

Because the Eberhardts move so often, Roy must struggle each year with making new friends, overcoming new-kid syndrome at school, and avoiding the bullies who like to test newcomers. He has become good at this, but it still hurts to leave places he has just learned to enjoy. Moving from Montana, his favorite place of all, especially hurts: “Back in Montana you had steep craggy mountains that rose ten thousand feet into the clouds. Here the only hills were man-made highway bridges—smooth, gentle slopes of concrete” (8).

Roy knows he won’t be going back to Montana any time soon, so he stays alert to anything in his new environment that might replace the old, fond memories. The first such distraction is the running boy, whose barefoot heroism fascinates Roy. Here is someone his age he can admire, someone who, in his way, is as brave and competent as a Montana rodeo bull rider.

The running boy, Mullet, becomes his friend and shows him a place near town—a quiet tidal creek dense with greenery and rich with the saltwater aroma of the coast—that can stand up to the grandeur of Montana. With his family, Roy takes a ride on an airboat through the lush swamp flats of the Everglades, where exotic birds and mammals, to say nothing of alligators, populate the wildlands. Roy realizes that “once you got away from all the jillions of people, Florida was just as wild as Montana” (205).

He befriends Beatrice and Garrett, who help him navigate the rough social terrain of school until he feels more comfortable being there. Roy’s friendship with Mullet teaches him to care about the wildlife around him. In striving to protect the owls, Roy bonds to his new home and learns to care for its fragile beauty.

Roy takes chances, extends himself, and grows into a person who is at home in his new town. In the process, he suffers more than one blow to the head, but the pain is well worth it. At the story’s end, Roy wants to learn how to catch mullet with his bare hands like Mullet can. After all, “That’s what a real Florida boy would do” (292).

Standing Up to Callous Corporations

A recurring theme in the author’s books is the ongoing, callous, and corrupt means by which corporations sometimes shoulder their way past community concerns and steamroll ethical issues. In Hoot, the Mother Paula’s corporation displays an impatient indifference to the concerns of a group of children who try to protect an owl colony from being killed by the company’s construction project. The children fight back by daring to reveal the truth, which proves enough to generate a groundswell of local resistance that sets back the corporation’s plans.

At first, it appears that the corporation possesses all the advantages. It has permission to bulldoze the lot on which the owls nest; it also has endless resources, support from the city council, and police officers at the ready to protect its property. Hidden away is the environmental report that declares the site a home for protected owls. The company denies that any such creatures inhabit its property. His dad tells him, “Roy, they own the property. They can do pretty much whatever they please” (156).

Only one person resists the construction—Mullet, the mysterious homeless boy who vandalizes the building site to slow the construction that will kill the owls. His antics catch Roy’s attention, and the two, supported by Mullet’s sister, Beatrice, join forces. Roy quickly realizes that Mullet’s deeds will not, by themselves, save the birds. He decides to support Mullet publicly by reporting the existence of the owls, first to his class at school and later in public at the groundbreaking ceremony. The children bring their parents, and a large portion of the town protests the cruelty in front of news cameras. Suddenly, “Everybody was upset about the owls” (284), including national media. Local support for the new restaurant quickly collapses.

The environmental report is found, thanks to Roy, his father, reporter Colfax, and others, and the restaurant company decides to donate the lot as a bird sanctuary. The secret to the protest’s success is that a couple of courageous boys and a no-nonsense girl help bring to light things that the corporation has kept hidden. The truth, once revealed, halts the construction and saves the birds. Everyone realizes that big corporations cannot run roughshod over a neighborhood if just a few people are willing to dig up the truth and share it with others.