Squirm

Squirm (2018) is a children’s novel by author Carl Hiaasen, who is primarily known for his humorous mysteries. He is a South Florida native who began his career as an investigative reporter and eventually penned a weekly column for the Miami-Herald. Always a prolific writer, Hiaasen turned to fiction in 1981. Since that time, he has written 16 adult novels, 7 middle school mysteries, and 6 nonfiction works. His writing has earned him numerous awards, including the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ Lifetime Achievement Award and the Denver Press Club’s Damon Runyon Award.

Hiaasen’s time as an investigative reporter caused him to focus his writing on the themes of political corruption, greed, and environmental protection, and his juvenile fiction series covers similar material. These titles include Hoot (2002), Flush (2005), Scat (2009), Chomp (2012), Skink—No Surrender (2014), and Wrecker (2023). Squirm falls under the category of Children’s Environment & Ecology Books and is intended for readers aged 9 to 12 in grades 5 to 7.

This study guide refers to the Kindle edition of the novel.

Content Warning: Both the novel and this guide describe emergency situations in which two teenagers are endangered when an armed attacker threatens them with a weapon. There is also a brief description of domestic abuse.

Plot Summary

The novel takes place during the summer of an unspecified contemporary year. The primary settings are split between the South Florida coast and Livingston, Montana. The story is told using first-person narration from the perspective of 13-year-old Billy Dickens. As Billy tries to solve the mystery of his missing father and battle a poacher who targets endangered species, the novel explores the themes of Protecting the Vulnerable, The Limits of the Law, and The Virtue of Eccentricity.

Billy Dickens comes from an odd family consisting of his father, Dennis, his mother, Chrissie, and his sister, Belinda. Dennis abandoned his family when Billy was only four years old. Since that time, Dennis has taken a job flying drones for a secret government agency. He has also remarried and moved to Montana. Even though he makes no attempt to contact his children, Dennis sends a monthly check to cover their living expenses. Chrissie does nothing to encourage her children to reach out to their father and in fact actively discourages contact by hiding Dennis’s current address from Billy and Belinda in the hopes that Dennis will reach out himself one day. She has remained a Florida resident but relocates her children every few years because of her obsession with watching nesting eagles. Whenever a nearby nest is abandoned, she uproots the family and moves to another town with a promising nesting site.

Billy has some quirks of his own. He is fascinated by snakes and has learned how to handle them safely. As a hobby, he catches snakes and keeps them in bins in the garage before releasing them back into the wild. The kids at school have learned not to bother him and refer to him as “Snake Boy.” Billy tends to intervene whenever a school bully harasses a smaller student. He has a reputation as a loner who keeps to himself.

When school ends for the summer, Billy tells Chrissie that he wants to fly to Montana to meet his father. He has saved enough money to afford the airfare and promises that he will return if his father doesn’t want to see him. When he arrives in Livingston, Montana, he learns that Dennis has married an Indigenous woman of the Crow tribe named Lil, who has a 14-year-old daughter called Summer. They welcome Billy into their home but explain that Dennis is away on one of his missions for the government.

Billy enjoys his time with Dennis’s new family until they learn that someone has slashed the tires on Dennis’s truck, which has been parked for a week at Tom Miner Basin near Yellowstone National Park. When Lil and the kids deliver new tires the next day, Dennis is nowhere to be seen, but he sends a drone to find Billy while the boy is hiking. The drone drops a message telling Billy to leave at once because Dennis is on a dangerous assignment.

When his father later refuses to show himself, Billy returns angrily to Florida. A few days later, Dennis shows up to apologize to his family. Privately, he tells Billy that he doesn’t work for the government. Because he was left a small fortune by a wealthy aunt, he has spent his time disrupting sport hunters who are trying to kill endangered species of animals. He explains that a man named Baxter was trying to shoot a grizzly bear when Billy’s hike inadvertently interfered with Dennis’s operation. Once Billy understands the full picture, he and Summer accompany Dennis on a mission to spoil Baxter’s hunt for a Florida panther.

The angry hunter plots revenge against Dennis by luring him back to Tom Miner Basin, where Baxter stakes Dennis out to become a meal for some hungry grizzlies. Summer and Billy manage to save the day and rescue Dennis. After they foil Baxter’s plans, the hunter flees into the wilderness, never to be seen again, though some evidence suggests that he was eaten by the grizzlies himself. Billy then returns to Florida, where his family keeps in touch with Dennis and his new family in Montana. Chrissie still watches eagle nests but is in no hurry to force Billy to move again soon.