Book Review: Celeste and the Giant Hamster

We just finished reading "Celeste and the Giant Hamster" by Melanie Typaldos. What delightful reading! We learned about the book on Twitter through @CaplinROUS, whose human is the author. The giant hamster is a capybara, just like Caplin!

The main characters of the book were three cats-Celeste, Tiger, and Ruby. Celeste lived with her human parents and human sister, also named Celeste, in an apartment. Celeste the Cat was not happy that human Celeste also had a Dwarf Hamster that she named Celestina. Celeste the Cat thought that she could show her humans what she thought of rodents by catching a giant hamster (a capybara) that was on the loose in the area and placing the giant hamster in front of Celestina's cage.

Other neighborhood cats Tiger and Ruby join Celeste the Cat in her quest to hunt down and capture the giant hamster. They encounter many adventures, obstacles, and even dangers along the way, but through it all develop friendships and a deeper understanding of each other. Our favorite character was Ruby, a small calico that at the beginning was kind of annoying to Celeste the Cat, but proves herself to be stronger and braver than the rest.

There is also an educational aspect to the book, as many people are not familiar with capybaras, who are sometimes kept as exotic pets and in zoos in the USA. The book demonstrates the gentle nature of the capybara, and the fascinating lifestyle it leads as the world's largest rodent.

We highly recommend this book, which is marketed as a children's book, but would be delightful and educational reading for animal lovers of all ages. It kept our human mom in as much suspense to the end as it did us! You can purchase the book on Amazon.com.