The Capybara Conspiracy is a middle grade novel by Erica S. Perl. Seventh-grade
playwright Olive Henry is frustrated by her middle school’s lack of
appreciation for anything but sports. While the principal drones on and
on during morning announcements about the sports teams’ victories, all
non-athletic club meetings are relegated to the school basement, never
to be mentioned on the loudspeaker. So Olive and her best friend,
Reynaldo, hatch a plan to kidnap the school’s capybara mascot, planning
to return it, heroically, just in time for the school’s pep rally and
claim a reward: permission for their drama club to practice in the
auditorium. And, hopefully, some overdue respect for the school’s
non-athletes. But when an animal-rights student activist and an
undercover athlete with murky motivations join in the conspiracy, their
plans—along with Cappy the capybara—veer wildly out of Olive’s control.
The Capybara Conspiracy
is written in play format, which is not my favorite, and took me a
while to get used to. I liked the idea of kids being creative, and liked
the amount of humor and twists involved in kidnapping a capybara. I
also liked the information in the back of the book, which gives ideas
for kids group reading the book because of the format. I enjoy the idea,
and think many reader would find it to be fun and satisfying to do so.
However, I think many of the characters were either underdeveloped or
based off of less than flattering stereotypes. I get that it was part of
the gag, but with the current state of the country with immigration, and
the amount of girls that still think dumb and pretty is the way to go, I
was not amused. Although, I was not the target audience either- so
maybe I was just not in the right headspace to enjoy the read.
