Chomp

When the difficult star of a reality television show disappears while filming an episode in the Florida Everglades using animals from the wildlife refuge run by Wahoo Crane's family, Wahoo and classmate Tuna Gordon set out to find him while avoiding Tuna's gun-happy father. Take a trip to Newbery Honoree Carl Hiaasen's Florida, where adventure is always in the air In this hysterical #1 New York Times bestseller, watch out for gators, snakes, bats that bite, and reality show hosts gone wild 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 father from killing Derek Badger, the show's inept 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 out.

They've only been on location in the Everglades for a day before Derek gets bitten by a bat and goes missing in a storm. Search parties head out and promptly get lost themselves. And then Tuna's dad shows up with a gun . . .

It's anyone's guess who will actually survive Expedition Survival. . .

Only in Florida--and in the fiction of its native son Carl Hiaasen--does a dead iguana fall from a palm tree and kill somebody. --New York Post

Chomp is a delightful laugh-out-loud sendup of the surreality of TV that will be enjoyed by readers of all ages. --Los Angeles Times