Book | Capybara Madness

Book Review: Animals of the Rain Forest: Capybaras

Animals of the Rain Forest: Capybaras by Alexandria Manera
Steadwell Books
This is one of a series of Animals of the Rain Forest books.

Book Type: Non-fiction, quick overview
Ages: 6-8

The range map in this book is probably its best feature.

Synopsis:

This book has 32 pages of large type that include the following chapters:

Range Map of Capybaras
Quick Look at Capybaras
Capybaras in teh Rain Forest
What Do Capybaras Eat
A Capybara’s Life Cycle
The Future of Capybaras

Each section is a quick overview of 1-2 pages including a photo or diagram.

Owner’s Review:

The cover photograph is quite nice but most of the interior photos are not high quality.

The good thing about this book is that it doesn’t present any information that is wrong. The bad thing is that is that it is boring. I think it’s boring even for a young kid. For example, “A capybara’s habitat has a lot of water. A habitat is an area where a plant or animal usually lives.” Sure that’s informative and I understand that you have to explain the vocabulary to young children but couldn’t it be done in a more interesting way? There are numerous instances of this type of explanation.

Caplin’s Review:

I was too bored to listen to most of this book but I did find this sentence amusing: Some people believe that their [capybaras'] careful grazing helps to preserve their habitat. Those wild capys must be way different than me because I am not a careful grazer! Unless by “careful” you mean I only eat things that taste good and only as close to the roots as my big snout will allow. I do make a decent lawnmower according to my owner.

Adopted a capybara :)

Remember my owner’s pledge to donate $5 to the San Antonio Zoo capybaras for every copy of Celeste and the Giant Hamster sold during my birthday week? Well, thanks to all of you readers, we were able to adopt a capybara at the “Senior Keeper” level. My owner put the adoption in my name. That means that my name will appear on a plaque somewhere inside the zoo. I’ll try to get my owner to do down there and take photos of the plaque and the capybaras in the next few weeks. If you get there ahead of us, take photos and share with us.

2009_sCapyAdoption

2009_sCapyAdoption2

Book Reading on Aug. 6th

Flier pretty much says it all.

Buda Public Library

Book About Capys!

If you’ve always wanted to read a book about capybaras, I have great news for you! My owner wrote a book about me…sort of. It’s actually about three cats who try to capture a capybara that has gotten loose in their neighborhood. The lead cat’s name is Celeste so I didn’t even get top billing. And the capybara is actually name Caplynn and is a girl, so I’m not all that happy about that. But it is a book about capybaras and it is loosely based on me, there aren’t many capybaras who can even say that much. Continue reading “Book About Capys!” »

Reading Rodent

Me reading Celeste & the Giant Hamster

You can’t believe the tension at my house this past week. My owner’s book, Celeste and the Giant Hamster, is out on amazon.com and people and animals are starting to read it. Since the capybara in the book isn’t really me, I didn’t think I would care much but I’ve gotten all wrapped up in the excitement too!

The first person we heard from who got the book was @alansmitheejp all the way in Japan! International audience right from the start! Then we got a photo of @WinstonPig, a very handsome tri-colored guinea pig, reading Celeste. Let me tell you, I stared at that photo for some time, thinking and pondering, pondering and thinking. A guinea pig reading is incredibly cute, no doubt about it. Could anything be cuter? That was a question I planned on answering.

Winston Pig reading Celeste & the Giant Hamster

I put on my reading glasses, spread the book before me and lay down in my favorite spot on the window seat. (The light is very good there for reading, by the way. I always think sunlight is the best but it has to be indirect and not too glaringly bright.) Then I started eeping. Eeping loudly. Finally my owner came in, saw my adorableness and grabbed her camera. (She can hardly stop herself from photographing me no matter what I do.)

When Neptune, Hello Pineapple and Sambal, who are all great friends of mine and my owner’s daughter’s guinea pigs, saw my photo and Winston’s, they wanted to test their own cuteness. They each had their picture taken with the book. They seemed to be taking turns. I guess they share better than I do.

Neptune

So now I can hardly wait for people and animals to send their pictures reading the book. Probably use the book cover or a page with a drawing is best, especially if the drawing is of the capybara or the capy-kittens. The cat drawings are okay but obviously you could see a cat drawing in a lot of books. Wouldn’t it be cool to have bunch of photos!

Hello Pineapple

Oh, my owner posted all the photos on amazon too. There is a place to upload “customer images.” Never noticed that before and not sure anyone else has either. But if you send me your photos I will put them up there too…course, you could do that yourself but if you’re as lazy as a capybara, you won’t.