#1 New York Times bestselling author Carl Hiaasen talked recently to Newsday about bringing Skink — the beloved vigilante ex-gov of Florida whose unique brand of swamp-justice has made him a star of six Hiaasen adult novels — to YA readers “before he got too old and cranky.”
Long listed for the 2014 National Book Award, Hiaasen’s first book for teens, Skink No Surrender, features the ragged, one-eyed renegade helping 14-year-old Richard rescue his teenage cousin Malley, who has run off into trouble with an older guy she met on the Internet.
Why Skink for kids? Hiaasen told Newsday:
“Skink knows his way around the wilderness. That’s the kind of person you want with you if you’re trying to do a rescue. He’s his own scruffy version of SEAL Team Six. Kids like characters who can sometimes defy authority if it’s for a good cause. Skink is not a model citizen. But he does have character traits. He does have honor. He does have a strong moral compass. These are all good things for kids to find in a character. I’ve had people show up at book signings dressed as him. They’ll have a shower cap and an eye patch.”
When asked how he managed to capture and maintain the voice of a 14 year old writing in first person as Richard, Hiaasen answers, “I’m lucky because I’ve got a built-in test market in the family. One of the things that you learn as a reporter, or you better learn, is you learn to listen. Driving kids around in a car, you listen to how kids talk, the cadence, what they’re talking about.”
In Skink No Surrender, Newsday’s Beth Whitehouse notes, Hiaasen emphasizes the importance of the environment and protecting species. Skink hands Richard a copy of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
“Silent Spring is an important book. It’s as important a book now as it was in the ’60s. I’m not proselytizing about it. If five kids go read that book, those five kids are going to be changed by it. But I don’t do it in a preachy way. I do it in a casual way.”
Carl Hiaasen has read his audience right. Skink No Surrender is set to debut on the New York Times bestseller list this weekend.