I found Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork, to be an especially engaging and well-written story.
Marcelo, a 17-year-old young man with Asperger's, is forced to spend the summer working at his father's law firm. He has been attending a private school for kids with disabilities for most of his life and has been very happy there, but his father thinks he is "better" than that and pushes Marcelo out of his comfortable, sheltered life into the messy, confusing, and very ugly "real world" so that he can learn to be more independent. Marcelo is assigned to work for Jasmine, a young woman who at first is very unhappy to have the boss's son thrust upon her rather than the assistant she had chosen herself. Then, just when Jasmine and Marcelo have learned to like one another and enjoy working together, Marcelo's father reassigns him to work for Wendell, who is a spoiled, self-centered, and manipulative creep. As the story progresses, Marcelo is faced with some terrible choices and learns some ugly truths about his father and how he has made his money. At times I was really afraid for Marcelo, thinking that he would not be able to cope, but watching him deal with the difficult situations he is placed in was inspiring. I think the world would be a much better place if there were many more people like Marcelo in it. In this story he loses some of his innocence and has to grow up, but his soul remains pure. I loved this book.
I finally decided to read Scat, by Carl Hiaasen, and I enjoyed it.
It was actually very similar to Hoot and Flush, with the kids fighting to save wildlife against a big, carless, and evil corporation. This time they are trying to save a panther cub by reuniting it with its mother -- no easy task with the bumbling Drake McBride, spoiled rich guy and president of the Red Diamond Energy Corporation, shooting off his rifle and scaring the mother away. McBride hatches a scheme to steal oil from one land parcel (which he does not own) and pipe it to another (which he does own) in order to make lots of money. As in the previous two books, the kids save the day and McBride goes to jail.
