Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Scat, by Carl Hiassen


Scat, by Carl Hiassen, finished 8-9-10

Fantastic! Right up my alley, maybe his best book yet! I loved it! This book deals with so many issues: environmental, honesty, relationships, trust, education, endangered animals, making good choices, and it does it all in an engaging and spell-binding way. I recommend it highly. :-D

Liesl (at Goodreads) says, "They [Hiassen's YA books:] are all, however, a little redundant. Same characters, same setting, same basic issue, same story format. You can predict it all." I felt that way after I read the last one, FLUSH, although I enjoyed the book very much anyway. But this one struck me as different enough from the others to be worthwhile. Yes, they all look at environmental issues, but each issue is different, with different problems and solutions required. It's true they all have "happy endings," but we don't know exactly what the ending will be or HOW THEY WILL GET THERE, and therein lies the fun!

My opinion is that kids need to read a LOT of these books so they are aware of the problems in the environment, the possible solutions, and the kinds of choices that can solve the problems vs. the kinds of choices that make them worse.

Some idiots are building an illegal oil rig on state land and discover a "panther" there and shoot at it to get rid of it, because it's endangered and would draw the game warden etc and conservationists, and they separate the mama from its babies, one of which dies--a dreaded bio teacher, a weirdo and a misfit kid try to reunite the baby with its mother and all kinds of stuff comes down --exciting.

This is my 72nd book of 2010.

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