Snoop

Carter’s sudden loss of mobility forces him to reconsider what strength truly means. At first frustrated by his loss of mobility, Carter gradually develops a different kind of agency through discipline, creativity, and moral resolve. His shift from resentment to purposeful action shows that strength grows from the determination to protect others, even when the body feels vulnerable.

Carter initially struggles with his new limitations, yet he quickly works to regain control over his changed circumstances. He sets up orange cones on his street to practice maneuvering his wheelchair, focusing on speed and precision. The drills help him rebuild confidence and sharpen his coordination. The chair, once associated with dependence, becomes the tool through which he develops a specialized skill. As he practices wheeling and improves his upper-body strength through repeated pull-ups and chin-ups, this training lays the foundation for a redefined sense of physical capability grounded in effort rather than ease.

He also discovers that his sharpest tool is his mind. Because he cannot travel around town as before, he turns to technology to expand his reach. The public security cameras give him access to distant spaces, and later, his mother’s drone allows him to track the movements of endangered animal smugglers operating out of the old courthouse. Rather than replacing his body, the drone extends his perspective, helping him observe events from above and gather clues. His focus and resourcefulness allow him to assume the roles of investigator and protector. Limited mobility does not eliminate his capacity to act; instead, it redirects his effectiveness toward strategy and problem-solving.

The novel unites his physical practice and mental discipline when the snow leopard escapes and endangers his classmates. Carter propels his wheelchair toward the animal to draw it away from the others. He tells his brother, “I’ve got wheels that are faster than walking […] I’ve been practicing” (172). In that moment, preparation turns into courage. The chair functions not as a symbol of restriction but as the means through which he intervenes. The scene reinforces the novel’s broader claim that strength is defined less by physical condition than by choice, responsibility, and resolve.

In Snoop, Korman suggests that knowledge is not inherently empowering; it becomes burdensome when it is detached from context and humility. Carter gains unprecedented access to Sterling through public surveillance feeds and later through his mother’s drone. The more he sees, the more he believes he understands. Yet the novel repeatedly demonstrates that visibility does not equal comprehension. Carter’s growing confidence in what he observes makes him unaware of the limits of his perspective, revealing that knowledge without context can distort judgment rather than sharpen it.

Carter’s mistake with Mr. Grimaldi exposes this illusion most clearly. Watching from his bedroom, Carter fixates on a thin man lingering outside the Paris Art Shop. The silent footage allows him to interpret pacing and glances as criminal intent. Convinced that he’s witnessing a robbery in progress, Carter reports the situation to the police. The man turns out to be an anxious artist checking whether his work has sold. The humiliation that follows does not stem from malice but from misinterpretation. Carter saw movement but not motive; he saw repetition but not anxiety. The camera provided fragments, and Carter filled in the rest with assumption. Korman uses this moment to illustrate how limited knowledge can create false certainty. Distance strips away tone, history, and human complexity, leaving the watcher dangerously confident in incomplete conclusions.

The burden of knowledge lies in recognizing its limits. Carter’s access makes him feel responsible for what he sees, yet he lacks the patience to question whether he truly understands it. His earlier excitement about monitoring town activity shifts into a heavier awareness that information demands restraint. By the end of the novel, he admits that there is “a point where snooping turns into spying” (191), acknowledging that the problem was not curiosity itself but the failure to draw a line. That admission reframes knowledge as something that requires judgment rather than impulse. Snoop ultimately argues that information carries weight: The more a person sees, the more carefully they must interpret. Knowledge becomes meaningful not when it expands vision but when it is guided by humility.