Skink No Surrender by Carl Hiaasen

Middle School

When your cousin goes missing under suspicious circumstances, who do you call? There’s only one man for the job: a half-crazed, half-feral, one-eyed ex-governor named Skink.

Skink joins 14-year-old Richard on a breakneck chase across Florida, undaunted by lightning storms, poisonous snakes, flying bullets, and giant gators.

This is the 7^th book in the Skink adult series; unlike the first six this one is for a younger audience. You don’t really need to read the first 6 books to understand Skink’s background story. Maybe I’ll get around to reading the first 6 books someday but keep in mind how strict I am about reading books in order.

Skink’s character is pretty much crazy. But when it comes to a good story, crazy is a good thing. Who wants to read a story about a sane person?

Well that’s the last of the Carl Hiaasen books. He hasn’t written anything for a young audience in years but I still hope he’ll come out of hiding and grace us with a new Floridian adventure.

All of these books are available on audio and I highly recommend listening to them on a road trip or just while driving around on errands.

Chomp by Carl Hiaasen

4^th Grade and Up

When Wahoo Cray’s dad – a professional animal wrangler – takes a job with a reality TV show called ‘Expedition Survival!’ Wahoo figures he’ll have to do a bit of wrangling himself to keep his dad from killing Derek Badger, the show’s boneheaded and egotistical star. But the job keeps getting more complicated: Derek Badger insists on using wild animals for his stunts; and Wahoo’s acquired a shadow named Tuna – a girl who’s sporting a shiner courtesy of her father and needs a place to hide.

As great as the first three books are, this one is my favorite. Non-stop laughs and non-stop action. This book doesn’t slow down for a second.

If you’re a fan of survival-themed nature shows, you’ll love this story. You get to learn what goes on behind the scenes and just how much they fake. When it comes to a show like Expedition Survival, they fake a lot of stuff. Mostly because their star, Derek Badger, is a complete moron. Derek Badger is pretty much a wannabe Steve Irwin, only worse. I won’t give too much away but reading about how much he stinks was enjoyable for me. Hopefully it will be enjoyable for you too.

Wahoo lives a pretty amazing life. His dad’s a professional animal wrangler and has a whole zoo in his backyard. I love books about kids with not normal lives. But you can probably already tell that from past book posts.

I love Florida’s animal population. It is so vast and a lot of them are mentioned in this story. Here are a few honorable mentioned: Alligators, Burmese pythons, bobcats and snapping turtles.