Hoot

by Carl Hiaasen
narrated by Chad Lowe
[New York] : Listening Library, c2002.

Roy, the new kid at Coconut Grove, Florida, has unfortunately attracted the notice of the local bully, Dana Matherson. When Dana is strangling him on the school bus, Roy has a good look out the window and sees a boy, running barefoot. Intrigued, he makes it his goal to find out about the running boy. Meanwhile, Curly, the foreman at a Mother Paula's pancake construction site, has been having difficulty with starting construction due to some creative vandalism.

To really tell you the meat of the story, I'm afraid I'd have to give away about the first half of it, so I'm going to leave my summary at that. I will add merely that one of the themes is the environment, and Roy's struggle of whether he should get involved in protesting - and how. His parents tell him that, when his heart and his head are telling him two different things, he needs to do his best to reconcile it and decide what actions to take. Not overtly preachy, though how much you enjoy the book will definitely be affected by your own take on environmental matters.