Title: Game Over for Capo and Friends
Author: Elizabeth Ribetti
Publisher: PageTurner Press and Media LLC
ISBN: 979-8-88622-407-8
Pages: 32
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Book / Educational / Nature
Reviewed by: Beth Adams
Hollywood Book Review
For a reader with a sense of ophiophobia, I admit a book about snakes can be a bit creepy. Yes, the devilish behavior, predatory behavior and slithering, squirming movements, coupled with their forked tongues, venomous bites and vertical pupils in their eyes, makes it to be a natural instinct for humans to fear them. Hence, in author Elizabeth Ribetti’s illustrated story Game Over for Capo and Friends, Capo, a brown tree snake, along with his “friends” invade the island of Guam and lay havoc on the population of birds, small mammals, and even the human inhabitants!
Capo and his followers take refuge on a ship, and go over the ocean to a far-away destination. Upon landing on the island of Guam, they find themselves in a cornucopia of food consisting of bird eggs and mice, but most importantly without any natural predator allowing them the freedom to eat, travel, explore and grow both in size and in numbers. Their behavior becomes so threatening to the bird population that the birds were forced to leave their home as all of their baby eggs were eaten, resulting in an eerie silence of what once was an environment of bird chirping and songs everywhere. Then the snakes learned to climb power polls, and inadvertently zapping themselves on the electrical wires, causing many power-outages. The problem got so out-of-hand that scientists looked into a method to rid their island of these dangerous and obnoxious pests. The story goes on to show readers how this situation was finally solved.
Capo begins as a protagonist in this story, but is changed to becoming the villain as readers’ sympathies are channeled to the happy birds, the mice and small animals, and yes – even the humans. The snake “overpopulation” became a real problem when a species invades an area without any natural predators, allowing them to reproduce with the abundance of food.
Game Over for Capo and Friends is actually based on true events, as the island of Guam was invaded by the brown tree snake over-population during and after WWII. It was thought the snakes hitch-hiked rides on naval vessels brought to the island during the war. The theme of this story, that of mitigating the over-abundance of a snake population is brought out making an impactful lesson for youngsters, as well as all readers, of this unique story. The artfully done illustrations dominate much of the story showing the mob-mentality of Capo’s friends, laying waste to the birds’ eggs and destroying man-made infrastructure.
I would think this is the first and final episode for Capo and his friends, as they all were eradicated from Guam at the end of the story. Yet this story will be remembered!